2,000 Ways to Find Love

This poem honors the Hunting for Hearts community for capturing more than 2,000 heart photos in 10 years. That is more than 1 heart photo captured every 2 days! The poem references several specific heart photos that I took during early days of grieving in 2015. Friends and family were quickly joining in. This poem also references a couple more recent symbols of grief, specifically ladybugs for Travis’ dad, Fred, who passed away in 2020, and yellow butterflies for our dog, Neville, who passed away in 2022. I believe Travis’ mother, Irma, who passed away in 2021, is also represented here as she was the first person to photograph an unexpected heart with me - a Thanksgiving Day heart potato in 2012 - and her love continues to guide us.

There are more than 2,000 ways to find love.
I know this is true because
after my dad died,
I fell like Alice -
down, down, down
through a deep, dark rabbit hole -
careened toward the bottom where
a lonely, gray winter sidewalk
was to be my hard landing -
but a yellow leaf in the shape of a heart swept
beneath me like a boat
and slowed the fall,
wrapped me like a blanket
when I reached the ground,
near where snow had melted like love.
It was there a friend met me with a mushroom,
and another brought cake
with bright pink frosting hearts
and I ate enough to grow taller,
wearing boots my dad bought me for Christmas -
boots he wasn’t able to give me -
and I started walking warily
toward the weary world of Wonderland.

Wonderland is where love is found
on faces of clouds
as pebbles and pieces,
and great, calling geese.
Friends, family, and strangers
find love there in shadows,
in graveyards and gardens,
as plants growing and grasping.
Through a looking glass we go
to a parallel world where
salmon sunrises and cool air
grace grief-stricken mornings,
and hearts by the ocean
are broken seashells and seaweed
in soft sand holding our feet.

There are more than 2,000 ways to find love
and believing is key
when you believe impossible things -
Possible love is seen -
and sometimes it happens
six times before breakfast.

In Wonderland, we
wander every hot day,
find love in lattes and
light beams in a zigzaging zoo
where tigers are harsh and
lions are loud
and black evenings come quickly
with signs of “this way” and “that way” -
where, when it feels
like too much a bad dream,
we find a cunning cat
who points to a heart
on the neck of a giraffe -
makes us laugh -
then disappears saying,
“The proper order of things
is often a mystery to me.”

“The proper order of things,”
what a thing to say,
as we go on our way
wishing our loved ones had stayed.
Perhaps we’re all a little mad
here in Wonderland,
bitter tea poured heavy and sweet.
Unbirthdays are had
by those who should be older
candles sparkle their names
and they’re gone all the same.
When we’ve had too much tea,
we follow yellow butterflies’ play
and ladybugs’ leading
to aspens near windy cliffs
that would lead us all the way
down, down, down
to the ground
if not for messages
and pings in our pockets
that remind us we’re never alone -
somehow there is a way home.

In Wonderland, I meet
with the Queen of Hearts -
my mother -
although she’s not the “off with your head” type -
she plays her cards right -
cards she’s been dealt
cards of diamonds, of clubs,
cards of sorrow and light.
Doesn’t demand that white roses be painted red -
just asks to see love instead and
heart hunters heal us
with love as their med.

Together, hands clasping, we create love
and say love, we wear it, and share it,
and our bleeding hearts bleed.
In 2,000 ways we’ve found love where it’s torn
and we gasped as we mourned,
as grieving is as resilient
as it is revealing
on the winding way through Wonderland.