In concert with my last newsletter, I wanted to share this trio of poems with you today. When you get a moment, quiet yourself and read.
Today’s question: Which of love’s many faces would you add to these poems, your own experiences in mind?
Announcements follow the poem, but I’ve broken the blocks up with a photograph so you can take the time you want (if any) for reflection and quiet after reading. Don’t miss the announcements, though - some important stuff going on there :)
Intro to Love
t.r.h. blue
i. “We’d like you to write forty-three poems,” they said to me, “about love. We all need that these days.” Through the window, our tulip tree in bloom. In my expanding body, just below my expanding heart, a tiny frame with a heart of his own, growing. Yes, I thought then, in that perfect moment, poems about love I can do. But love is a many-faced thing, and the first day I felt the spirited, sparkling waggle within my womb was the day my grandma died. My wife, my wife, for weeks she’d find me in the bed we share, soaked and choking in that sea of sadness. Baby wondering, wiggling, discovering, birds cheering the morning, body retching, aching, splitting, sighing while my darling wrapped her arms around me to hold me together so I could fall apart. Love is a many-faced thing. ii. This is love: losing sleep to rise at dawn, to feel the world in that waking window, stretching and groaning, giving to us a new day in which some will thrive and some will die and some will sleep straight through it and some will wish it would never end and some will wish it never was. This is love: a tender touch, a soft kiss on closed eyes, skin touching skin. And this: agonizing pain as a bad-set bone is rebroken, rebound; a scalpel, a speculum, a severing. Love is kindness, and it is hope, and hope is heartbreak, because it sees what is not-yet. It is warmth, and it is intimacy, and intimacy is grief, because it sees what is to be. It is the flower that feeds the bee that feeds the planet that feeds the people who are killing it, who are healing it, who have forgotten it entirely, who pass the open daylily (here only a day) and never see it, lost as we are in love with our screens, with our distractions, with our sweetheart who’s sent a message so ravishing we’d never have preferred a flower to that feeling of perfect yearning, that simple being seen. And who are we to judge? Love is a many-faced thing. iii. Remember this, as poems wrap arms around you, as people learn you like a book, as nature sings and music blooms and art and awe tango to the rhythm of your heartbeat, as you cook and you clean and you do those monotonous things, as you ache and you weep and you lose the ones you love, as you lose yourself, as you find something of you again: all of this, this seeing, this caring, this knowing, all of this is love. Fear not its complexity, its nuance, its violence. Love was never meek. Look, look, look into its dozens of eyes. Love is a many-faced thing.
Thank you all for spending a little time with me today.
This is how I plan to be sharing my work now as I transition away from Instagram. I’d love to hear your feedback, to pick your brains about what kinds of things you’d like to see from me, what format (handwritten images vs. typed) you’d like to read them in, how often you’d like to be receiving poems to your inbox, etc.
Currently, a rough schedule for my newsletters looks like this:
Week 1: Newsletter with prose, poems and writing prompts.
Week 2*: An open thread to reflect and connect with one another, to share our responses to the writing prompts, etc.
Week 3: Newsletter with poetry and announcements.
Week 4*: The Daybird audio release: where The Daylily meets the Songbird.
My wife Alex Blue and I are working currently on a really special little audio project we plan to send out monthly to y’all - a poem and a song, straight to your inbox.
*Paid subscriber features
Please do let me know what you think! I’m still building this thing and would very much love your input as I do.
Quick FYI: My prior paper supplier sadly went out of business due to the pandemic. I’ve recently switched paper suppliers, so for those of you who order prints, please expect some variance in the appearance of the paper itself - the paper weight, size, and quality is identical, but there is some difference in color.
As ever, I use 100% recycled cardstock for my prints, and I ship them using recycled envelopes, recycled backing board, and compostable protective sleeves. Everything is printed to order to reduce waste.
Looking forward to hearing from y’all soon. Sending much love your way today.
torri blue
You can purchase prints of today’s poem(s) here.
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I loved reading your newsletter and your beautiful poem! Looking forward to reading more of The Daylily.