If Not For Love

If Not For Love by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18 The little child who cries, brushing sleep from startled eyes, might not have awakened from her dreams to fill the night with plaintive screams if not for love. The little collie pup who tore the sofa up and pleads here in a mournful crouch, might not have ripped apart the couch if not for love. And the little flower pot that broke and littered the rug with sod might not have been dropped if a child had not tried to place it at her mother's bedside— if not for love. Crocodilian, Shining Bright! by Michael R. Burch apologies to William Blake (but he might approve) Crocodilian, shining bright, In the Nile by pale moonlight, What immortal hand or eye Dared frame your fearful symmetry? In what veiling depths do you now glide like death—unerring, true to your strange nature, till you rise to awe, dismember, terrorize? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of your heart? And when your heart began to beat, What dread hand? (& will we meet?) What great hammer forged the chain Of your strange armor? What cruel brain imagined jaws so strong, so cruel, so full of teeth and bloody drool? When the stars’ immaculate light First brushed you on that sixth dark night, Did he who formed you laugh to see Your teeth agleam, your eye on me? Crocodilian, shining bright, In the Nile by pale moonlight, What immortal hand or eye Dared frame your fearful symmetry? I have a vivid memory of writing "If Not For Love" while I was still living with my parents, probably around age 18. There had been some sort of accident in my mother’s bedroom involving the family dog, and as I left after helping to clean up the mess, the poem came to me as I stood in the doorway. According to my notes, I revised the poem several years later, in 1982, to remove an inversion in the second stanza but the poem remains essentially the same. Keywords/Tags: love, child, childhood, children, dream, dreams, night, nightmare, screams, cry, cries, collie, pup, puppy, dog, sofa, couch