Intimacy
Lost in the white noise of winter
A herd of Holsteins stands silently
Waiting under a solitary tree
For freezing rain to end.
Most everybody looks for company,
Being alone will do now and then,
But raw, naked loneliness is dreaded
More than anything else that's known.
The urge to merge is doomed,
We are all stone deaf and dumb.
Sensual play alone is
The only language of the soul.
Otto Rank had an insight:
Birth is the mother of all traumas!
We yearn to return to the womb
Aghast at our solitary stillness.
Imprisoned in our own skin
We helplessly signal each other,
Gesticulating we flail about
Longing to exit from solitude.
Welcome to Aphrodite, Venus and Juno,
Lothario, Romeo and Casanova.
The dance of amour, the only path
To the rapture of being entwined.
Milt Ehrlich