poems about falling in love

Poem of the Week, by Thomas Fenton

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Click here to read a thoughtful Publisher Weekly’s interview with me about my new novel, Telephone of the Tree. 

Today I sat in my favorite bakery working on a new book. This is a bakery I go to once or twice a week, where most of the staff are young and beautiful the way young people are always beautiful. It was late afternoon, a slow time of day, and behind the counter two of them were talking. Their voices rose and receded, paused and then tumbled along, full of laughter, then murmurs, then laughter again, and I thought of this poem. Maybe they’ve been friends for a long time. Maybe something is changing. Maybe they left the bakery and went to their separate homes and are thinking about each other now and smiling.

Serious, by James Fenton

Awake, alert,
suddenly serious in love,
you’re a surprise.
I’ve known you long enough —
now I can hardly meet your eyes.

It’s not that I’m
embarrassed or ashamed.
You’ve changed the rules

the way I’d hoped they’d change before I thought: hopes are for fools.

Let me walk with you.
I’ve got the newspapers to fetch.
I think you know
I think you have the edge
but I feel cheerful even so.

That’s why I laughed.
That’s why I went and kicked that stone.
I’m serious!
That’s why I cartwheeled home.
This should mean something. Yes, it does.

Click here for more information about James Fenton. Today’s poem, “Serious,” is from his collection Yellow Tulips, published in 2012 by Faber and Faber. 
alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Cecilia Woloch

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Click here for details and to register for our new Write Together session in June. I’d love to see you in the Zoom room!

Someone I love told me recently that she had first glimpsed her future husband at a dance and was instantly captivated by the sparkle in his eyes and his intense interest in everyone and everything. Four months later they were engaged.

She told me about their wedding long ago, and how when it was over, and she and her new husband were driving away from the reception, just the two of them, she looked at him and felt everything in her relax. A feeling of deep security, of I’m safe now, I’ll always be able to count on him, filled her entire being.

Anniversary, by Cecilia Woloch

Didn’t I stand there once,
white-knuckled, gripping the just-lit taper,
swearing I’d never go back?
And hadn’t you kissed the rain from my mouth?
And weren’t we gentle and awed and afraid,
knowing we’d stepped from the room of desire
into the further room of love?
And wasn’t it sacred, the sweetness
we licked from each other’s hands?
And were we not lovely, then, were we not
as lovely as thunder, and damp grass, and flame?

Click here for more information about Cecilia Woloch.

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter