The “Love Poem”
Bridegroom, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet,
Lion, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet.You have captivated me, let me stand tremblingly before you.
Bridegroom, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber,
You have captivated me, let me stand tremblingly before you.
Lion, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber.
Love poems have persisted since the advent of writing, as the above poem demonstrates. It is the beginning of the first ever recorded love poem, written in 2031 B.C.E. by the ancient Sumerians, located in modern day Iraq, and was performed by ancient Mesopotamian kings as a yearly marriage rite before symbolically wedding the goddess Inanna to ensure fertility and prosperity in the coming year.
“I do not write about love
as if I have invented it.
I write about love
because thoughts of you
inspire self-forgetfulness.
And because writing about you
gives birth to a star.
These stars sit inside me
where there was once
darkness.”
Love poems since then have, of course, been one of the most widely read and written forms of poetry. Think ancient Greek epics to Shakespearean plays to the Beatles. Love poems inspire us, connect our base instincts, and immerse us in overwhelming feelings - of togetherness, loss, heartbreak, and hope.
If you can’t tell by now, I am no exception to the rule of love poems (or writing about love in general). When I was in fifth grade, I remember, much to my embarrassment, my teacher announcing to the whole class that I would make a great romance writer one day.
This week a lot of my poetry/writing has focused around love, as well as domesticity, as I’ve moved in with my boyfriend because of the COVID-19 situation. My writing about love hasn’t always focused on the romantic, as my fifth grade teacher would otherwise suggest, though. My love poetry has also focused on familial love and self-love, neither of which I’ve proven to be sufficient at. This week, however, let’s focus on the ooey-gooey romantic gross stuff, because that’s more fun. And far less serious.
And I wonder if this is what
Forever looks like.
Like coming home to be alone
Together.
Like lying in bed naked with a swollen throat and swollen lungs
And an aching that sits with its
Feet on your heart and its head
On your stomach.
Like dancing late at night
With no music and open windows,
Like fairy lights disguised as
City buildings, an obelisk
Wedged between here
And home.
Alrighty, I’ve got a weird assortment of memes for you this week, but all timely and some even funny.
