Early Works - Feelings Poem by David Harris

In my mind and heart,
I find joy
knowing you by small words,
but never knowing
the way you feel.

Deep within my thoughts
I ponder
on the question
do your feelings
correspond with ones
my heart and my mind produce,
yet you know
little of my feelings really
for life and fate
has held me out of reach
of your life for so long.

Maybe between the small words
and quiet smiles
I can find a sign
of how your feelings flow.

Yet on the other hand,
if I’ve read things wrong
a one-sided love affair might grow.

So unconsciously in the corridors
where love lies in wait,
I stride cautiously
gaining admiration for you
at a surprising rate.

I must not
fall too quickly
for if I do
the floor might give way
and I shall be hurt
in the fall.

So I tread with caution
overturning each stone as I go.
Upon reaching, the end
there won’t be much I don’t know,
or will there.
I might know all about you
in every detail,
it might be illustrated,
but your feelings
are something only you can tell me.
So with heart and mind
I plunge forward
hoping, wishing, and praying
the right answer I will find.


18 August 1968