Love Has Its Own Energy

Claude Monet (1840-1926), "Camille Monet at her tapestry loom," 1875. Camille Doncieux married Monet in 1870 and gave birth to two sons before dying of cancer or tuberculosis in 1879. They had been a devoted couple, and the painter— a founder of French Impressionism— was devastated by her death.

LEFT: Édouard Manet (1832-1883), "Girl in the Garden at Bellevue"
(for more on Manet, see https://www.artsy.net/artist/edouard-manet)

BELOW RIGHT:  Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), "The Swing," oil

 on canvas, c.1767, "considered... one of the masterpieces of the rococo era....

The painting depicts a young man hidden in the bushes, watching a woman

on a swing, being pushed by a bishop. As the lady goes high on the swing,

she lets him [the 'hidden' man] take a furtive peep under her dress.

As a symbol of the loss of virginity, the lady has let one of her

shoes fly into the air. Although women wore bodices

 and the like  during this time period, they did not

use underwear...." Wikipedia

Lazy Heart

When there’s something in the air that weighs
it down—that enervating water-pollen mix,
perhaps— when the barometer has risen, or
it’s fallen, at the moment I’m afraid I don’t
remember which— and when the sky’s opaque
and dull, and even chatty cardinals don’t
communicate; a robin can’t be bothered to
investigate a sign of subterranean activity within
her territory, though it would likely yield
a meal—

and I suppose they’re healing from frenetic
spring, which, once awakened, rubbed its eyes
and surged to life, demanding that its
denizens fall smartly into place, and now
they’re taking mental-health days; we should
pay attention, for they put our human pace
to shame—

on days like these my heart is lazy. It would

love to lie about and gravitate toward

yesterday when it imagines that it didn’t have

to labor so to be engaged with people, places,

occupations. “Ah, if only now were then,” it
teases, tempting me to give it space for

wallowing, and all too soon the rest of me

would follow, and I’d wish to have my lively

children back who at the time I’d hoped

would hurry and mature and move away.

It’s true there was contentment that

eludes me now, when I have time to brood

and notice small tears in the lacy
drapery.

I tell my heart it doesn’t need to drift in

gravity’s deceptive ease, or shiver in the

clammy air, or rid itself of insubstantial
burdens. Little effort is required to ascend the
gentle path to love. The poor heart merely
must present itself and can be certain of
success, for love has its own energy, and does
the rest.

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ABOVE: Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927), "The Enchanted Garden of Messer Ansaldo" 1889. Stillman was was "a British Pre-Raphaelite painter of Greek descent, arguably the greatest female artist of that movement. During a sixty-year career she produced over one hundred works, contributing regularly to galleries in Great Britain and the United States." Wikipedia