Love Will Kill or Cure You
Where are the children of the sun, those climbing railings, tempting treetops, laughing, lingering, stretching out on the grass filling one hour of one afternoon before supper, and sleep? I was once one of them, taking liberties with dad’s instructions, stretching his day to the length of mine before the warm sun stumbled and fell off another day. Wisdom makes no sense when written down; only lived.
When the bell ended the school day, I was always the first kid bursting out, the first daisy in the grass, running and yelling. Other boys followed me, not because I was a bully, because I wouldn’t let anyone bully them. I could never get enough of the long cloudless evenings, the butterfly chase, watching the hedgehogs grumbling, waiting for darkness.
From the schoolyard to way out yonder, beyond somewhere, I never did find the rainbow. I told the town goodbye, starting off to see what I must discover, knowing death is always imminent. A mystic I am not, and yet amid the London morning, before Paris and Leonard Leconte,* I was ever reaching back to the sea.
Many times I tried to go both ways, over the hills, crossing Sundays, hiking passed September, while in my mind, I remained on the shoreline, creating waves, pushing tides into winter.
Such was my confusion I discovered that love will kill you or cure you — either way, it is worth it.
