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Do not believe anyone
who tells you it will be easy
or it will be impossible.

It will have less to do with photographs
and more to do with mirrors;
not one single budding,
more a slow-growing vine.

Practice it long before you’ve found
the limb or the nape of it;
love all of it;
love even the lack of it,
the empty reach and longing need.

Add all of it to the well.
When you thirst for a love with no reason
and no need for reason,
sip from it endlessly—
a love that refills, that tires of itself
but does not exhaust itself.

The practice itself is the fall and the nape of it,
the mirrored reflection, the slow-growing vine.
It is not easy, but it is this simple:
Say the words out loud.
Trust that you’ll know how.
Trust that you’re the only one who does.

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—Dale Trumbore