Buttons

The way to a woman's heart is not through

The buttons of her blouse. We tried to tell

boys that back then. Now they are men

and need reminding. Ponder O'connor's

“A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud,” regarding

love. Consider inanimate things, or at least

those not human; do that first,

and for a long while: days, weeks, months.

Concentrate on the striations in the bark

of a tree, its many tangled archings, its

dancing leaves, the gray squirrel shimmying

the big thick trunk. Next, ruminate

on rock, any rock, its shape and texture,

how beneath it many small grubs

make safe homes; cherish it for its frank

immobility yet generosity. Next, a cloud,

which will morph as you study it; it is

the most important of these, most like us

shifting, yet ever a cloud. Let your heart

fill with things until they flourish

in your heart as wonders, saturate

your bones like new marrow.

Forget all tomorrows; think on humanity

not at all. And then, some kind evening

in Spring, after a full quarter century

of living with a complex being,

ask yourself what is in the blouse

that is not in the woman;  truly, ask.

Lie still, stare at the ceiling; count its cracks;

let radiance blanket you like 

a long wandering kiss.  Do nothing else;

be stolid as both tree and rock

as amenable as cloud to reconfiguration.

Divine the world turning slowly on

its ancient axis. You might find that buttons

and their secrets are not what you desire,

might, to your delight, discover a vast land

that seemed lost yet never disappeared; 

might uncover love again, but not with

anxious fingers; with anything and

everything else both ineffable and sweet,

all of it garbed in nothing, yours all along

had you remembered where, and how, to seek.