Day 102: Raisin Pumpernickel

This is a great love poem from Marge Piercy, full of original and witty observations. 

But I always think of it as an autumn poem too, especially the glorious imagery in the first stanza, 'You shine, my love, like a sugar maple in October/Like a golden-orange overarching blaze of leaves...'  

So is it beautiful!

Raisin Pumpernickel - Marge Piercy

You shine, my love, like a sugar maple in October
Like a golden-orange overarching blaze of leaves,
each painted its own tint of flames
tossed on the ground bright as silk scarves.
So are you happy.

My curly one, my stubborn fierce butter,
down with the head and charge all horns
and the blattering thunk of bone head on bone,
the smoke and hot rubber stench of overheated temper.
So are you angry.

The tomcat is a ready lover. He can do it at dawn
when the birds are still yawning, he can do it
while the houseguest walks up the drive, do it after
four parties and an all-night dance, on a convenient floor.
So are you able.

Your love comes down rich as the warm spring rain.
Now it charges like a tawny dark maned lion.
Now it envelopes me in wraiths of silken mist.
Now it is a thick hot soup that sustains me.
So are you loving.

You’re an endless sink of love, a gaping maw
into which I shovel attention like a soft coal
into an old furnace; you’re a limitless love source,
a great underground spring surging of rock
to feed a river.

You cry your needs, bold as a six-week kitten.
You’re devious as a corporate takeover and direct
as an avalanche. What ten years into this conversation
commands my interest? You’re still the best novel
I’ve ever read.

Secretly we both think we are bred for each other
as part of an experiment in getting dreams made
flesh and then having to feed on the daily bread
of passion. So we die and die with loving
and go on living.