Love Poem: Taking Off
Sally Eslinger Avatar
Written by: Sally Eslinger

Taking Off

Taking Off!

Some time passing, wondering 
about my invisibility, 
apart from my so very demanding physicality...

From birth, as my mother reported, 
I wanted smiles, 
screamed for them, 
made other’s cheeks sore giving them...

Then learning I could cause them, create them, 
with my own being, 
making and doing, living 
into the happy, hopeful, surviving part of the room...
that is greatly all THEY want from me,
 more than my poems or drawings...
Sally, that is all that is wanted:
 YOU TO BE THERE!
You are yourself loved 
as a small, twinkling star 
  that somehow stays within hearts 
or rooms, able to be held, visible, alive,
 more than what I create, 
  which is what means my life to me...
  for which I hunger the approval
...but it is I, the small, embraceable star...
as we are each of us...for a time 
visiting our earthly haunts 
with our being’s twinkling love, 
 to the hearts who pause to see.

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(C) sally young Eslinger 3/2021