Classic Poem

Why Should I Hold Back, Dear Body?

Why should I hold back, dear body?
I hear many voices, dear body, mingling voices of lust,
And they do not tell the truth about you:
Let me speak out, let me tell the truth, I will not make more seem less:
Let me tell what I see but let me avoid the tangled phrases of the scholars,
Let me tell what I see in the virile direct syllables of love:
The truth about you, dear body, so long misunderstood:
The truth about you, dear body, so long suborned to base uses:
The truth about you, dear body, made the plaything of law and license:
Let me be seen and listened to—let me break out in words of praise of you—
In the face of profanity let me declare you holy,
In the face of devils let me declare you god.

I am not afraid to avow you, dear body:
I think that my mother is in my words to give them maternity,
I think that my children are in my words to take them to the future,
I think that my lovers are in my words to give them the seedgrains of sex:
Being so rich, as you dear body are rich, in fulfilling passion,
And succoring, as you dear body always succor, the paling faith of love:
And so I can pour out my soul in your interest, dear body, holding nothing back,
Bringing to the flesh its most exalting suppositions.

Dear body, I take you into my confidence:
Night and morning it is the same: my love goes out to you,
And in the unveiling silences my love goes out to you,
And in words of ingratiating salutation my love goes out to you,
And you know what it all counts up to and are glad of my love,
And after I come to you and go you look for me to come again,
And I say this to you, dear body: I shall not disappoint you:
I shall not be careless about my engagements with you:
Men say that the contracts of the body may be broken and no harm done but I say no,
For I see that with the treaty of the body broken all is broken and love is banished to the desert.

I say to you, woman, who own a woman's body:
I am full of awe of you because I am able to respond to what you reveal:
I tell myself that the earth and life start and end in you: I tell myself how conclusive you are
I am going to pour you into my cup until it is full and drink myself drunk with you,
I am going to dive my deepest into your sea to find out how much of ecstasy abides in the divine currents:
Be kind with love, dear body, my darling: you two cannot be separated:
Do not reject love when love offers to companion you on dangerous journeys:
Be good to love: do not undervalue the fraternity of the body:
Think what it means to acknowledge love and obey its summons,
Think what it means to recognize your natural leanings and hungers,
Think what it means to treat your passions as if the soul could not get along without them
Dear body: you so long denied are coming back to life again—
Out of suffering are coming back into joy,
Out of the incomplete are coming back into the complete:
Let me welcome you—with love's kisses welcome you, with love's embraces welcome you.

And so your gospel is spoken, dear body:
I am all the time thinking of other things to say to you,
And yet there seems to be only one thing to say to you:
To say love: that is the only thing to say to you: I know of nothing else:
To put love into the common air, not to reserve it for special places,
To light the very sun with love making it burn with a fiercer flame,
To tide the rivers with love overflowing the farms with its excess,
To remind you of love when you forget and to bless you with more love when you remember,
To soften with love the hard luck of the derelict and to harden with love the soft luck of the swell,
To make no yoke or houseling of love or quote it in the legislature or the home against the body,
To demonstrate love without shame wherever I go to a woman just as freely as to a man,
To no longer buy goods across a counter: no: to buy love: love will be my coin and purchase,
To sing love and you, dear body, into my rough songs instead of velvet tones,
To write love and you, dear body, into my rebellious poems instead of conforming rhymes.

And so in the end it has come to this in my ripened heart, dear body:
When the priest says God I will say Body,
When the composer says Music I will say Body,
When the poet says Dream and Rhythm I will say Body,
When the seer says Justice I will say Body,
So that you, dear Body, until now outlawed, will come into possession of what belongs to you,
Not seizing or wanting anything that anyone has the right to withhold but persuading dissent by the pride of your humility,
You, dear Body, grown supreme in indulgence of lust and denial of lust,
You, dear Body, demanding that I tell the truth about your capacities:
And so in the end it has come to this in my ripened heart, dear Body:
That I must be seen and listened to as I break out in praise of you, dear Body:
Why should I hold back, dear Body?Englishlove poemlove poemslove poems for herlove poetrypoems about loveromantic poems