Tomorrow I marry a bride whose family came to the United States from Cuba. They have harrowing stories. I felt that one way to pay tribute to their families heroism was to use a reading by a Cuban author. Some years ago, I picked up Burnt Sugar: Cana Quemada: Contemporary Cuban Poetry in English and Spanish, edited by Lorie Marie Carlson and Oscar Hijuelos. Enjoy the poem “Loving you is a Way of Being,” by Angel Cuadra.
Loving You is a Way of Being, by Angel Cuadra
Loving you is a way of being
I watch the years pass like the smoke
that goes rising in blues, and is lost.
Life has an identical profile
That reappears sometimes, and is its constant always.
I have the profile of loving you forever.
I have assumed that gesture from the beginning.
It seems that I have come to this corner of the world
to tell the universe I love you.
Occasionally the world exists to contain us:
A transient vessel that holds our contents.
It is a way of being: loving you is that
An attitude toward life;
Almost a life in itself, an absolute.
A circle, of which each point is the end
and each point the beginning.
The plenitude of being rests in your embrace.
Like coming close to quiet.
And being quiet is your way
Complete am I only when I love you.
