LYFORD ON LOVE

PART ONE

(I’m calling this one “Part One,” not because I have a specific Part Two in mind at all. It’s just that, knowing me, I’ll probably have a couple hundred Parts on this theme. I mean, who knows?)

We begin…

As a 34-year teacher (a career that came to an end over two decades ago), I was forever unearthing priceless little tidbits of poetry from the many literature anthologies I’d inherited in whatever classroom I was assigned. That was one of the big English teacher perks, for me. I collected any and all the ones that touched me in one way or another, and now I carry around a gazillion of them in my iPhone (well, technically they’re warehoused in the cloud). But… anyway, sometimes when I’m languishing in a doctor’s waiting room, manning the circulation desk during the quiet moments at the local library, or riding in the passenger seat while my wife, Phyllis, drives the car, I can simply pull out the phone and alter my mood with a poem, just like that. And I have so many genres: love poems, war poems, protest poems, sci-fi poems, beat poems, horror poems, anger poems, hilarious ones, short ones, endless ones… you name it. Strange little things, smart phones. You never really know who’s packing what.

Sometimes there have been these important-to-me poems in my life that I’ve somehow managed to lose and, consequently, I’ve ended up investing a great deal of my years tracking them back down. Which is next to impossible if they’re ancient and especially if you can’t for the life of you conjure up the title or the poet’s name. But if and when I ever do recapture one of those, there’s a little celebration that goes on down deep inside me that flutters my heart (somewhat like A Fib only more fun). I kid you not.

Here’s a true story. About three or four months ago, a TV commercial was advertising an upcoming boxing match featuring a boxer whose last name was Saavedra. I probably shocked my wife when I leapt up of the sofa and shouted, “That’s IT! THAT’S HIS NAME!” Then of course I had to explain to her what the hell I was yelling about.

Well, a little poem that I’d discovered way, way back when had somehow vanished from my collection. It was just a snippet of a thing, a little love poem only a few lines long. Wouldn’t be deemed important to most of the citizens of our planet but, as I often say, we’re all occupying our own little unique spaces on the social spectrum, aren’t we.  And yes, it was a love poem. I’m a sucker for love poems if they’re well-and-creatively written. The main reason I was having no luck recovering this one is because of the hard-to-remember-let-alone-pronounce name of the poet: Guadalupe de Saavedra. Plus wrack my brain as much as I could, the title refused to leave the tip of my tongue. For years! And then…

Bingo!  There was some unpoetic dumb-ass boxer named Saavedra going to box some other unpoetic dumbass palooka on TV. And finally (and serendipitously) gifted with the boxer’s name, I only had to seek the help of the Great God Google. Ding! Retrieved it in five minutes!

The poem is titled “If You Hear That a Thousand People Love You.” And today is the perfect day for me to share this love poem here, it being Phyllis’ and my 57^th anniversary today (7/30). So that’s got me feeling all warm and fuzzy here. Spoiler alert: I’m such a damn romantic. But now that I’ve talked about it and put it on a pedestal, I imagine you’ll look at this piece off fluff and say, “What the hell does he think is so special about this thing?!” And that’s OK because, right after this poem, I’m going to share two or three poems I’ve written to Phyllis over time and, yeah, sure, they’re bound to be deemed head and shoulders above this one, right?

IF YOU HEAR THAT A THOUSAND PEOPLE LOVE YOU    

by Guadalupe de Saavedra 

If you hear that a thousand people love you 
remember… Saavedra is among them. 

If you hear that a hundred people love you 
remember… Saavedra is either in the first 
or very last row 

If you hear that seven people love you 
remember… Saavedra is among them, 
like a Wednesday in the middle of the week

If you hear that two people love you 
remember…one of them is Saavedra

If you hear that only one person loves you 
remember…he is Saavedra

And when you see no one else around you, 
and you find out 
that no one loves you anymore, 
then you will know for certain 
that… Saavedra is dead 

Yeah, not really such a great poem perhaps. But when I first found it, I was smitten. My favorite line is Saavedra is among them, like a Wednesday in the middle of the week. I dunno. I can identify with a love like that.

Story of my life with Phyllis: since I was a high school junior and she my freshman sweetheart in 1962-63, I went crazy writing poems for her, about her, and about us. I was a rhyming fool, a creator of bad doggerel (poetry written by dogs, I was once told). I don’t know why, but I was madly driven to capture The Adventure of Our Old-fashion Crush with all its ups and downs on reams of notebook paper. Each verse was honestly a sonnet in itself. I get this feeling I might still have a few “chapters” of those maudlin verses lying around somewhere, in a box maybe, but I couldn’t find them. Just as well, I imagine. I’m pretty sure I’d be embarrassed by them today.

Funny, immature me, I’d go to the movies and hear how cool Clark Gable or Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart or Jimmy Stewart would speak to women, and then I’d try to model my own ‘lines’ after some of theirs. One time at Phyllis’ home, I was sitting at her kitchen table and watched her making me a cup of coffee. Then, as she brought it over to me, I dunno, the whole scene felt so domestic and she so wifely, that I Abruptly came out with this one: “Hey, you and me? Let’s grow old together.” Now how corny is that?

OK, I’ll tell you how corny it is. It’s laughingly as embarrassing as a Harrison Ford line in the 1973 film, American Grafitti. The year is 1962. Ford plays Bob Falfa, the reckless badass dude driving a hot, souped-up, black ’55 Chevy. Bob wants to prove his car is the fastest car in the valley. So, he’s itching to go up against Paul Le Mat’s character, John Milner, who drives the locally famous yellow 1932 Ford 5-window coupe, the hot rod that had long been the fastest car in the valley. Before the race, however, badass Falfa picks up Laurie (Cindy Williams) who’s virginal, vulnerable, and on the rebound from having just been dumped by her steady, Steve (Ron Howard). Unfortunately she’s about to become the lady-in-distress as Falfa has decided she will accompany him in the ill-advised speed race out on the outskirts of the city. But first, he tries to come on to her, in his way (who wouldn’t) but the way he attempts it is something that is so weird and awkward it caused me to cringe. First he grows all serious, then looks her straight in the eyes, and after a moment (what?) begins ridiculously singing “Some Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific. I know, right?! Don’t believe me? Stream the flick. It’s a wonderful film (with the exception of Ford’s musical come-on). But as awkward as that was, it’s a little bit too similar to my out-of-the-blue “Let’s grow old together” attempt. Oh well, it’s funny now. And of course it’s taken 60+ years, but Phyl and I eventually did succeed in accomplishing just that.

 WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE 

you crossed the square heading west on main… we were the yang and the yin 

i was the fire & you were the ice, the odds stacked against us had loaded the dice 

but we didn’t know that then 

i watched you walk with your new friend & talk, unaware i was being reeled in 

that was the fateful momentous day in our tinytown lives so mundane

just a fall afternoon with the sun dropping down 

autumn leaves underfoot, yelloworange&brown 

on the corner of north street and main 

i watched you walk with my cousin & talk

(through the drugstore display window pane) 

the gambler in me told my heart & my soul: though opposite charges attract 

i’d look you in the eye & retain full control… 

our fate’s cosmic die rode the crapshooter’s roll 

& rolled boxcars— the odds had been stacked 

(magnetic north pole & magnetic south) 

our futures were processed & packed 

the bi-polar pull of our gravities’ force set our orbital paths for collision 

inevitable contact… there was no recourse 

our hormones alone were our single resource 

the dice roll had made its decision 

no time for reflection, no room for remorse 

the outcome was nuclear fission 

when matter and anti-material collide: cataclysmic, the chain reaction 

its thunderclap echoes through all space and time 

it alters the future’s & past’s paradigm— 

twin suns, we were lock-stepped in traction 

each destined to fall as the other would climb 

the orbital dance of co-action… 

you crossed the square heading west on main (we were the yang and the yin 

i was the fire & you were the ice 

we were starcrossed as soulmates—indelibly spliced 

but we didn’t know that then) 

i watched you walk with your new friend & talk 

aware you were reeling me in 

FETCHING

needling your quilt in your lamplight halo

you look over and catch me

your “RCA dog”

gazing into your eyes

my spiritual tail beginning to wag

and me growling some humorous

something or other—

this old dog’s old trick

for fetching me

the biscuit

of your sweet

laughter

THE BIG CHILL

“we got married in a fever hotter than a pepper sprout” 

— johnny & june carter cash 

you were the spark 

that ignited the fuse 

for the 

big bang 

of my hitherto 

relatively uneventful 

love life 

it flashing incendiary 

roman candles & rockets 

molotov-cocktail love 

flame-thrower love burning 

magnesium hot 

launching me in a straight trajectory 

right over lover’s leap at 

e=mc² 

but that was in my callow youth 

today 

like the olympic flame 

my love for you 

still burns 

patient now & serene 

fireplace cozy 

cup of cocoa hot 

electric blanket warm 

Happy 57th anniversary to us (7/30 /1966 -7/30/2023)