And This Is What Life Is All About What Love Is Poem by RIC BASTASA

somehow we like to look back
upon an experience which once shattered us.
a betrayal, another humiliation,
a failure, and then we feel it again,
and we who are not so keen about metaphors
simply sit and watch and let it pass
hoping that the feeling diminishes, calms itself,
and you look it as though it is a picture
now bounded by a frame.
you say, now i know, i am not that shattered anymore
i have become a patch to another patch,
sewed, and sees a pattern
a map,
a lesson, a paper where you read the story
and then you set it aside, and look for another,
this time, it will be a page of a happy moment,
love for instance, or
sex,
or meeting someone you care for and
who cares for you
in return, a sense of mutuality,
then, human as you are, you extend your remembering
about a love unrequited
and this is where you get stuck again,
accepting the fact that you have not really moved on
with your life,
every night, there is a face without a frame
of reference
which disturbs you no end,
which follows you
even in the room of your dream
you want to forget
but it is not within your own domain
to do so.

and this is what life is all about
what love is.
you have so much and yet you choose the
one who is not there for you to touch.

you choose a storm and you
live in it.
stirred and whirled and tossed,
and you take pride on the strength
of this poem.
whatever happens, you are still here
writing.

no patterns now, just a trail
towards an uncertain destination.