POETS UNITED - OPENNESS

“Just because a door appears closed it does not mean that it is locked - nor that it will not open with the right heart, call or touch” - Rasheed Ogunlaru

The Midweek Motif for Poets United this week is “Openness”. My contribution below:

You Read me Like an Open Book

“You read me like an open book,” she said,

“And always know what to do and what to say to me.

Why cannot you be the same,

Why must I always guess (and always wrongly!)

Of what you hide deep in your heart?”

I smile (and I do enigmatic well), and reply:

“My dear, were I too like an open book,

How boring we two would be,

Going around reading each other

And bumping into trees and poles and such?”

She looks puzzled and frowns –

“But it’s so frustrating, all this guessing,

This suspense, this uncertainty!

You are shut up like a clam

And I never know what pleases you…”

I open up my hand and on my outstretched palm

There is a verdant oasis of palm trees

And sweet, inviting water;

I open my arms and there is a peaceful place,

Disarmed, serene, eirenic.

“Come,” I say, “I am accessible,

Just don’t read me, simply feel,

Listen to my constant heartbeat

And let your fingers perceive the braille of my skin

That spells out my love more eloquently than printed words.”

She touches me and divines my meaning,

Wordlessly and so divinely quiet;

And she rightly guesses this time

My hidden meanings and understands

That for so long I have been staring at her open book

With the unseeing eyes of an illiterate.

This post is part of the ABC Wednesday meme.