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