How I loved

I did not love him with the sureness, the trueness

of algebra.

I loved him the way the ocean loves the shore:

with swells backing and filling, 

reworking the sands, its segments, changing, 

the shapes, the temperature

by degrees 

with every tide. 

I loved him without planning how or when, 

love always circling like gulls, spreading 

whiteness and darkness.

I loved him without gypsy words, without 

the burst of a match. 

I loved him like a kite bobbing in the wind, 

like a whale floating up mouth open. 

I loved stumbling like a drunk.

Like waves blown from far away

in large breakers from distant winds. 

I loved like a wanderer who comes upon 

a redwood grove

and stops to hold the silence.

I loved simply that he was here.