Love Poem: The Genius of True Love
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Written by: Brian Johnston

The Genius of True Love

Every poem you write, a universe (and just your creation)
Yet somehow I’m free there to follow my dreams
And this freedom you give (child of imagination)
Reflected back to you by my mirror of being,
Thunder flashing in canyons of our conjoined lives.

How simple it is to love one you believe loves you,
But such love is a straw basket whose unrefined strength
Only retards the loss of life’s blood from the trembling corpse
Already near death, ecstatically skewered with cupid’s arrows,
Its coarse weave simply tinted red by life it can’t contain.

My loving you is not about assigning numbers to your beauty
Or assessing our progeny’s probable health 
In the mysterious but fearful symmetry of your smile.
Not about money you’ll earn in time that spares me
The stress of being a sole provider without backup, 

Nor can it be discerned in how fast you run the mile,
Or the quality of your game changing backhand shots,
Or lobs passing over the heads of your competitors,
One can tell that they know they are beaten,
But remain mystified as to just how it happened.
 
I know we will still love each other when we are old.
Your unending purpose, the gift that keeps giving,
My love’s not a welcoming basket of fruit, jam and nuts.
Loving you is the acceptance of your full potential,
Into the universe that is my space and time.

Knowing love’s yours… not a prayer to Mars!
Knowing love’s yours is my heart given fair,
And seeing that love rests on path that you follow,
Well that, and the blush that soft comes to cheek hollow…
Slowly, lips teasing, as I kiss you there.

Where is the proof love is written in stars?
Where is the certainty Church knows the way?
The genius of love is in truth above sorrow,
In loving the woman that you are tomorrow,
Just like I love the child you are today.

Brian Johnston
August 15, 2014