Can Love Stand On One Leg Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

As if being tested for being drunk
Can love stand on one leg and prove
It can do what it promised to do, to
live and let live for love is just
That.

Can love prove it is without hate
And continue standing and not be
Interrupted by the moment of
questioning?

Love like water flows from one
Point to another and stagnates
And when the valve opens
Spills out to go and do the usual
Water the hearts and make them sing
in unison.

Like oil it lubricates the hardened
And softens them to be pliable and
Then they find the pot in which they
Are being cooked is too small to hold
The legs that have always been outstretched
On a couch called time.

Can love prove that it is the only thing
We seek when we walk with our noses in
The air hoping something that smells like
It will get wafted in our direction only
To realize that we should have gone south
Instead of north and east in stead of
West. The in between does not do it for
It feels like love yet it it is just
What it is a feeling that wants belonging
And acceptance that cannot be done by
Means pliable and changeable.

This elusive love which we search for
And go all over to find is just what it
Is, forever needed and surely something
We never get enough of and always want more of
Mother love and Father love do not
Come into the picture and color it blue
When we search for soulmates for they
Are the best examples of what it is. We
Look in every nook yet it lies all around
Us laughing at us in this hide and seek
Game it has us playing on this here
Earth. Next time catch the feeling the
Way you catch a bug and make sure your
heart has liquid enough to baptize it
And have it say your name night and day.
Like a bug let it fly but not too far,
For you will need it just the moment
It breaks free. Know that freedom is the
Essence of these things. For it is more
About actions of touching, seeing and
Saying than it is about objects.