Tuesday Poem: ‘Height of Love’ by George Korolog

Height of Love

Nothing between
us but eager sky,
coaxing belladonna,
fairy trumpet,
glacier lily,
your hairy moraine
furious with fireweed,
lingering in brazen tufts.
Top me, you say,
kiss me, resting
only after you
have satisfied me.
I plant my
measured steps,
throbbing devotion
into your back,
your face dripping
winter rime,
parching August brooks,
the spring of daring,
you will take my life
if I love you less.

Image and poem by George Korolog. Posted with permission from the author.

Author Note: 

I was a climber for over twenty years and have climbed all over North American and Canada.  My love of the mountains has taken me to many distant and beautiful places in which I reveled in the isolation and the responsibility of making personal decisions that made me fully in charge of my life.  I have great admiration and respect for nature and for the fact that it is neutral and unforgiving of errors in judgement.  I viewed my treks into the wilderness and up mountains with a love that touched on many fears, the greatest of which was the fear of any disrespect for the great power of nature. This very brief poem had its seed in that great and deep respect for the mountains and my love for them.

Thank you, George Korolog, for sharing your words this week. I admire greatly what the poet writes here about respect for nature, and the idea of making choices that are entirely one’s own — decisions one must live with, whatever the consequences. This poem touches something very deep in me, and I’m so glad to have it in my Tuesday Poem series. I especially love the idea of “the spring of daring” and those two last lines, written with such a matter-of-fact tone, utterly lacking in sentimentality. Such a deep love and respect in these lines — they hit the mark perfectly.

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More about George Korolog:

George Korolog is a San Francisco Bay Area poet whose work has been widely published in over fifty print and online journals such as Word Riot, Forge, The Monarch Review, Naugatuck River Review, Blue Fifth Review, Poets and Artists Magazine, The Journal of Modern Poetry, Red River Review, Connotation Press, The Chaffey Review, Thin Air Magazine, Grey Sparrow Journal and many others.  He has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.  His first book of poetry, Collapsing Outside the Box, was published by Aldrich Press in November 2012 and is available on Amazon.  His second book of poems, Raw String, was published in October, 2013 by Finishing Line Press.

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Tuesday Poem is a collective of poets who share poetry on a weekly basis across borders and time zones. At the TP hub this week you’ll find  “Two Lips Went Shopping” by Lizz Murphy, a poet from Canberra, posted by TP editor this week, P.S. Cottier. 

For more Tuesday Poems, go here.