Love is the dust stuff   (CLICK ON THIS AUDIO FILE TO LISTEN TO SPARKS' POEM)

 The best poetry always has universal appeal. An open heart watches the words fall into the soul.

   It has been a gift to know three poets I admire. The first is Clare Bateman, a Greenville resident who won the Pushkin Prize for Poetry & taught others (including me) across her career. The second is my sister-in-law, Karen Updike, who also wrote & taught with searing brilliance.

   The third is my friend, spoken word artist Minton Sparks, whose stunning answer to the question, "What is love?" redefines our experience of the word:

Love is the dust stuff under an angel fingernail
after takeoff and the ground grows small.

Love is memories, the curl of smoke suspended behind the magic carpet moments after the rug with the dragon driving leaves town
wearing a coat of wonderful "what once had been".

Every night we ease into our chairs, eat a meal, weighted mortals,
hearts of stone and water, the bowl of our mouths gaped like baby birds. Waiting.
(to be filled)

Love is glue drying between two bodies who've practiced the ancient art of longing. Martial artists guarding each other's borders.

And so I will gather your dust, inhale the curl of smoke, and eat. Fingering the seam of glue that binds us.

What is that "seam of glue" that binds you to another? Does its strength ease your longing?

-Erie Chapman

Portrait of Minton Sparks ©Erie Chapman, 2019

Audio of Poem by Erie