Gwendolyn Brooks:To Be In Love

To be in love
Is to touch with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.
You look at things
Through his eyes.
A cardinal is red.
A sky is blue.
Suddenly you know he knows too.
He is not there but
You know you are tasting together
The winter, or a light spring weather.
His hand to take your hand is overmuch.
Too much to bear.
You cannot look in his eyes
Because your pulse must not say
What must not be said.
When he
Shuts a door-
Is not there_
Your arms are water.
And you are free
With a ghastly freedom.
You are the beautiful half
Of a golden hurt.
You remember and covet his mouth
To touch, to whisper on.
Oh when to declare
Is certain Death!
Oh when to apprize
Is to mesmerize,
To see fall down, the Column of Gold,
Into the commonest ash.

To analyze this poem is like trying to define love while we already know what love is and each and every person will always their own or a different meaning. In this poem, it is saying that love makes you no longer look at life through your eyes but also through your lover’s eyes. What you feel he feels, what he feels, you feel; that is love. This is the message when the author says “You look at things through his eyes. A cardinal is red. A sky is blue. Suddenly you know he knows too. He is not there but you know you are tasting together.  Not only that, but a sense of respect is gained when one falls in love also. So, when something bad happens to break up the relationship,  it truly hurts her. She suffered really bad but tries to overlook all the bad thoughts she is having but the thoughts keep coming back over and over again. Even though the feelings she is having are still inside of her, she still cannot accept the fact that it is over because it becomes like a certain “death” to her. The poem is saying that love is very easy to come across but not always an easy thing to forget. It really makes a person hurt inside when they get hurt  and may look a certain way on the outside but painful on the inside.