The poem I FIND MY HAPPINESS IN LOVING YOU by Nicholas Gordon is a love poem. The poet explicitly mediates that he finds happiness and pleasure in loving his dearest one. Further, the stanza has been explicated considering its core theme and meaning below.
There’s no one else I hunger for, nor touch
That makes me feel I must take off my skin;
And so I’ll wait as years pile up like leaves,
And long with the lonely patience of the moon.
This excerpt is taken from I FIND MY HAPPINESS IN LOVING YOU written by Nicholas Gordon, an American poet. The speaker of this stanza talks about his waiting for his beloved. He says that he is not interested in anyone and he can wait for many years to get her back. So, it is about his longing and patience to get his love back.
In the very first line, Nicholas Gordon speaks about his ‘hunger’ which is not for other people but only for his beloved. Here, ‘hunger’ can be his hunger for sex which is common to many of us, or ‘hunger’ can be his thirst to see and meet her and get her love. She is the one for whom he hungers for. He further says that no one’s touch can give him feeling. Here, the term ‘touch’ may mean sensual touch which can arouse his sexual hunger and can compel him to take off his ‘skin’, his clothes. Another meaning can be taken from the ‘touch’ as well that is ‘touch’ of love, care, and affection which can easily make him ready to tear off the skin of his body. It shows that she is very special for him. He again compares his waiting for her with the ‘years pile up like leaves.’ It is simile which shows his love for her. He takes himself as a year which goes on without caring about anything else, but just caring his aim that is to go on. It has only one goal to go on as leaves have to fall in the fall and make a pile on the ground. As years are in proper order, leaves also remain on the ground in the proper position. They never get disturbed from anything so same as them the speaker also cannot be disturbed by any ‘hunger’ and ‘touch’ up to the arrival of his beloved. In the last line of this stanza, he compares his patience with ‘the moon.’ Here, the moon is taken as the symbol of patience because it appears at night as if it is in the search of something valuable to it; she does not take rest for her quest. So, he also says that he can wait for her for a long time as the moon waits and comes for something meaningful to it. Its rhyming scheme is ABCD.
To sum up, through I FIND MY HAPPINESS IN LOVING YOU, Nicholas Gordon expresses his passionating love for his beloved more than anyone. She can only satisfy his hunger and make to take off his skin. He is waiting for her arrival like the moon which has the patience for her quest for something meaningful. This is where it leaves us with a lesson that we should fall in love with someone who can make us feel rejuvenated in every single time. We should have the patience to wait for our beloved without being distracted by others’ touch.
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