To youth

Love, is it merely sheer attraction,
sipping the nectar’s blossom,
leaving memory traces of smell, touch,
and implosive momentary experience,
or, is it the depth of care for the other
twinning with the self,
blurring difference?
Or, is it simply a tick-a-box prognosis
of potential possibility,
loving love as a notion
going through a motion
devoid of the inner swirl
simply because people expect it.

Does one ever know oneself
if love’s truth is measured simply
by a spark that vanishes
like the wind.

Talk is cheap if observing
love pass by
is unlovingly detached,
but it is rich, if the observer
wishes the feeling felt
is not just a passing breeze.

Deborah Ruiz Wall