"They also serve, who only stand and wait..."

I am waiting for within to join
without. Who is alone
intertwined in you, unable, unwilling to stop
coming, to untangle the urgency
of water--the stitches in his flannel shirt are wedded
to the Virgin of Guadalupe, and our first goodbye is tucked under
a conversation on scales, basted into
the moving darkness of cars--Mexican silver laced to a kiss--
our mouths meet over and over, teaching each other a thick, wet
language--tongues against teeth, submerging,
and escaping words--heart pooling up to lips. Only open again, and we are
bathed in one another--ripple flows into wave--I am movement
waiting. A desert river still seeks the ocean.

My words are real when

My words are real when I know
(you) will read them--alive, moving towards (you)
in the darkness of sleep, or desire
i begin to think pen and paper are trying to heal,
a salve for lonely hands, shallow months, overflowing with footsteps,
sunlight and incidents, but no embrace (like yours)--made first of eyes,
until arms enfold in the warmth of flannel and earth,
in the scent of a Mexican flower (or is it a tree?) I cannot name. The page grasps
what keeps slipping through. Each day made and emptied of your solid form,
(your opaque heart), and voice full of expressions which are loving
without reference to love. Unknowingly, I let silence live
between dishcloths and passion. My hands busy turning over peaches on the counter,
looking for mold, busy with crumbs and drops of water, yet searching
for a few words, while (you) wait for laughter, do not say.

vocabulary for the heart

"...when the electromagnetic fields of two hearts come together, they begin to oscillate or entrain to each other...as the two fields come together and synchronize, the process produces a combination field, in effect, two fields in one. And these two fields are, like all nonlinear oscillators, in harmony. They produce something that is more than the sum of their parts...A unique identity comes into being and exists as long as the two fields are synchronized."
--"The Secret Teachings of Plants" - Stephen Buhner

The scientific language of this quote is a perhaps a little cold and rather confusing to those not already interested in "nonlinear oscillators," yet I find it remarkable because it is an example of the logical voice of science taking up a theme usually reserved for the intuitive voices of poetry and mysticism--the theme of passionate union, of dissolving separation with love. Two hearts becoming one--literature and myth suggest over and over that such a thing is possible--whether the poet speaks of eternally living in the beloved, or the mystic sings of ecstatic harmony with God, the message is the same: when two beings come very close, this closeness transforms them both, widens their existence beyond the boundaries of the individual.
And now here is science, with statistics and verifiable evidence, suggesting that this magical vision of union is physiologically possible, that the emotional connection made in a "heart-to-heart" conversation is also a biological one.
Is this helpful--to have another thing once taken on faith be proven as fact? I couldn't say for sure--even facts are ambiguous and seem to change as often as beliefs. I guess the suggestion I find in this passage, and in much of Buhner's book, is that some scientific knowledge, if caught before it is streamlined into mathematical formulas, may offer us new ways to talk about the role of the heart and the role of love in our lives and in the world. I imagine that we could gather new words from chemistry and botany to be added to a vocabulary of love--if such a thing can be said to exist. For if it does, it is a vocabulary that many of us try to avoid, viewing discussions of love as sentimental minefields of cliches and hyperbole. It's true, the grind of greeting cards and romance novels has tarnished the sparkle of much of our love language; yet, perhaps an infusion of the unexpected, of cardiology and cloud formations, could revitalize it, could give heart to the cynic in all of us.