Ordinary Love

Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch

 
Indescribable--our love--and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
"I love you," in the ordinary way
 

and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.
 

Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.
 
Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say
 

we're older now, that "love" has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.
 

Published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly, Mandrake Poetry Review, Carnelian, Poem Kingdom, Net Poetry and Art Competition, Famous Poets and Poems, FreeXpression, PW Review, Poetic Voices, Poetry Renewal, Poetry Life & Times; also winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne Poetry Award.

Reviews

[Lea Sheryn]

Nice! True love never really fades.

[Michael R. Burch]

My poem suggests that love matures and can seem "old hat" but something magical remains. There is a sort of tug-of-war between the ordinary and the indescribable.

[Lea Sheryn]

I like that you describe it that way. Love, although, it becomes ordinary, doesn't really fade. It exists, beco es stronger, fades, returns and, in doing so, endures.

[Michael R. Burch]

Yes, I think "endures" is a good word. Love matures and endures.

[Lea Sheryn]

It is a good way to describe it.