Lost & Found Valentine's Edition

Today I am participating in the Lost & Found Valentine's Edition, a special blogging event inspired by a collaboration between Arlee Bird and Guilie Castillo-Oriard, co-hosted by Elizabeth Seckman, Yolanda Renee, Denise Covey and Alex J. Cavanaugh. 

The guidelines for participating in the event are:

Do you remember that special feeling of love found? And who hasn't experienced the emotional experience of love lost? Some of you might have even lost a love only to find that person later for another go around.

Tell your story about love lost or found in our special Valentine's blogfest.   Your post can be a short fiction, an essay, poetry, or even a song--let your imagination run free. Any genre is fair game, be it romance, historical fiction, memoir, or even science fiction. After all there are no limitations when it comes to love.

    

My post consists of a two part poem.  

Revisit

I.

The tobacco shop where you bought your first -

soft eighties music tinkles from somewhere,

but the rest’s changed, we’re not so well-versed

any more with the buildings in this square.

The teashop’s gone, its shaggy patched awning

replaced by a modern fronted café.

Do you remember what happened that morning?

recall the exact events of that day?

I only heard you claim my place and order

you said there must have been some slip-up;

I raised my eyes from behind my folder.

The earth stumbled.  I pushed across my cup.

Years later and I still don’t know who found whom

and I still let you have my cup in tearooms.

II.

It didn’t feel like finding anything new -

more like resuming after a hiatus.

A death, an intervening life or two,

but the story just the same between us.

I seemed to know the creases of your eyelids,

I was sure I’d kissed that mystic mouth before,

my forehead had lain against those fingertips,

my feet had walked for lifetimes to your door.

It doesn’t count who’d left behind the other -

the deaths, the lives, the partings in between;

this life’s a chance to weave ourselves together

in a tale again like we have always been.

Were you contrite? Did you stand me a round?

If love has not been lost, can it then be found?


~~~~~


A basic tenet of ancient Indian philosophy is the cyclical nature of the universe, anaadi (that which has no beginning) and ananta (that which is endless), it is timeless and perpetual, it constantly morphs into different forms, comes back to the original point and starts the whole cycle over again.  'What goes around comes around' in short. The common Indian ideal of a successful relationship/marriage is that love persists through cycles of birth, death and reincarnation. ‘The bond that ties for seven births’ - like the universe, true love is supposed to be cyclical, timeless and perpetual too.


In Eastern poetry, particularly in the Sufi tradition, the tavern and the inn are established metaphors for the world and worldliness.  The cup/goblet/glass is also a metaphor, for events and trials, for life itself. ('......if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.....' is perhaps the most famous use of the metaphor.)  I, being where I am and what I am, can't help but use both the cup and the tavern often in my writing, suitably tweaked and updated.


The sonnet is a Western form and has been used widely to celebrate love. It felt entirely appropriate for this prompt. Thank you to the creators and the co-hosts, and to you for reading. 

To read the other entries click here, or here.