Love A Long Time Ago

I once lived in a place and time

where love and its pursuit

was as noble as Arthurian purity,

Love and all its splendor

was a Camelot of sorts,

a world of make believe and myth

far removed from the accumulated realities

that life’s experiences seem to procreate.

Love, a very long time ago

was a single cell experience,

immune from the pressures of social manipulation

and other forms of emotional engineering

that have reduced the innocence and clarity of love

to nothing more than a scientific by-product

that can be poured like quick dry cement

into a Good Housekeeping-approved

one size fits all prefabricated mold.

Today, I cannot even imagine

this thing called love

without all the standard attachments

such as reluctance and uncertainty,

hesitation and equivocation,

suspicion and doubt.

Love, today,

is a credit check,

a background check,

an intelligence test

and all the other addendums and codicils

that the skeptics, cynics

and other profiteers of expertise

have packaged so neatly

in self help books sold for profit.

What was once, a very long time ago,

something unpretentious and unadorned

is now a perplexing and puzzling ride

where solutions can only be found

in the diatribes and commentaries of Dr. Ruth

and other self-proclaimed sorcerers of love.

Love, a very long time ago,

was a ritual of an almost religious nature

complete with allegoric liturgy and

very definite rules of engagement

that no one dared to ignore or even question.

Love, a very long time ago,

was a treasure,

a holy grail unblemished and undefiled by experience;

love was once a creation

of accomplishment and achievement

because it all was so new, totally undefined and absolutely uncharted.

Love was something we invented,

on the spot,

without a blueprint

and enjoyed without all the prejudices

that one carries around like unwanted hair.

The memory of Love, a very long time ago,

sits in the front lawn of my mind

like a rusting old car

always to be admired

and relished –

I wonder what Lynn Kaminsky

is doing today?