WHAT WE WANT
What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names--
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.
— Linda Pastan
from Carnival Evening. © W.W. Norton
There was a disturbance in my heart,
a voice that spoke there and said,
I want, I want, I want!
It happened every afternoon,
and when I tried to suppress it
it got even stronger.
~ Saul Bellow
Love/Life Poems
