Beyond
by Sara Letourneau
What does it mean to travel beyond?
Does one need to soar past the moon, the sun,
toward the outer reaches of the universe?
Should one look farther than the blurring boundaries
between here and there, life and death, love and hate?
Or do I simply need to look into your eyes—
the pupils dark and star-spangled as the night sky,
the irises warm and brown as earth,
bursting with seeds of hopes not yet sown
but already taking root in my mind,
the gloss and wetness that aren’t tears
but a doorway of liquid emotions.
I didn’t know what love was, didn’t dare to believe
it could step into my life the way you step over the threshold.
But when you asked if it was possible
for me to cradle your heart in my right hand
and for you to hold my left, the world beneath my feet
stilled as air and horizon spun around me,
and the word yes had never been so easy
and yet impossible to give. Now, here in this nest
we’ve created with our arms, you face me and I you,
and suddenly I see how we’ve become each other’s suns,
our lives the planets that circle each other
on paths resembling a magician’s linking rings—
or maybe we’re riding the same orbit
now that our galaxies have collided.
Whatever the case, I know what I see,
and I welcome the tidal pull of our embrace.
How did I fall into this love?
How can time stretch so long and yet run away from us?
Does it even matter what beyond may be
when I’m already there, exploring it with you?
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Sara Letourneau is a poet, book editor, literary coach, and writing workshop instructor who lives in Massachusetts.
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Our Reader said:
Very thought provoking and I love the poem form used in this context. The writer really captures the all-encompassing, unexplainable, completely consuming aspect of love.
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