The Ages and Stages of Love

by Marjorie H Morgan

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin …

Let us travel together, into a journey of love.

Before the beginning

there was love

there was love

before the beginning

Love is

difficult to define

love is

impossible to confine

love is

not easy to recognise

love is

love is

a mysterious prize

Love is

tailor made

it needs no accolade

but

careful you don’t fall

as

one size does not fit all

It starts with a look

or

it starts with a touch

or

it starts when a butter-fly

unexpectedly makes you sigh

as it tickles the insides

of all your parts

that are connected

to your heart

Love, oh love,

joyous love

is sometimes splintered

and crushed

when greed breaks into your sealed world

and

without warning

chains you down

labels you

property

and buries you in the belly of the ship

carrying you

across oceans

to be

to be

or not to be

with or

without the cause

and the reason

for your own internal fluttering

love is the stowaway

the silent cry

the open sigh

the brightest hidden dream

love is

the wish to grow wings

to reverse time

love has no reason

love has no rhyme

but love is not

in the cruel whip that

forges

gorges

and rivers of pain

for financial gain into soft sun kissed skin

like a javelin

love is not

the forceful graft

into foreign soil

for dawn to dusk toil

with Black bodies broken

for the Sovereign’s token

but

love is

love is

the eternal flame

that holds no name

love is

the synchronised drum

that familial hum,

love is

love is

love is

found

where hope nearly drowned

there was love in the land of wood and water as the Maroon’s strategic daughter

held tight fast

to her Ashanti past

so

love lives

in the actions of Queen Nanny

who was far too canny

to bend her knees

across the seas

Before this beginning

there was love

that talked and walked

through the bluest of blue mountains,

they walked and talked

of their ancestors

in ancient homes,

they talked and walked

and named the strange land with familiar words

that retains the link to the time

before time

was split

like a fallen coconut

they walked and talked

of the Akan trickster Anancy

and sang the stories of resistance

into the blue black night

that held them with a mother’s might

because there are days

when you have to bow your head to the heavy hand

and there are other dawns

when you have to raise

your fist to preserve the love

that clings to your foot as

you are both torn asunder

like unevenly yoked cattle

So love led Queen Nanny and her Maroons

to walk and talk

into the blue black night

that held them all with a mother’s might

Love caresses and holds

it cautions and moulds

Love is a serious act

love is a revolutionary fact

against divisions

that are not yours

Love is a fighter

that wins the day

and often the nights

so-ooooooo

when fresh life emerges in a bath of tears

with pain and trembling joy

the newborn cry is a gifted memory

celebrated with libations to the ancestors

and the secret burial of the navel string

beneath the roots of the orange tree

that has watched

generations of downy hair turn grey

and bones return to dust

love is

the

shining star

nursing a heart-worn scar

leading Sister Harriet Tubman

back

to herself

back

to freedom

Love is

when

you start

your own

new world

you make

your own

new ways

in unfamiliar spaces

with unknown faces

Love is the blanket that draws close

when you need it most

Love is the fear

that you share

with your heart

that is another part

of you

else-where.

Love is impossible

to paint

for the light

is never right

for the many shapes

that chameleon love takes

means love is sometimes

not recognised

when feelings are circumcised

by your heart

Love is

difficult to define

love is

impossible to confine

love is

not easy to recognise

love is

love is

a mysterious prize

Love is

tailor made

it needs no accolade

but

careful you don’t fall

as

one size does not fit all

Love is

sometimes seismic smiles,

and even electric eyes love defies all death and wars

love is

love is

love is … us!

In the words of Robert Nesta Marley,

“One love, one heart

Let’s get together and feel all right.”

© Marjorie H Morgan February 2020