How does it begin?

How does it begin?  A smile.  A glance.  
A tilt of the head.  A particular stance.  
And something inside like a resonant string
starts to vibrate in that first moment of recognizing

a soulmate.  A welcoming harbor.  A home.
A shelter to save you from being alone.
And this all occurs within just a few seconds.
How quickly one heart to another one beckons!   

Going about your business, your accustomed routine
as familiar as a pair of broken-in jeans,
the world you were living in...becomes strangely new.  
Has the sky always been that bright shade of blue?

Have the birds always sung with that unrestrained joy?  
How does music now have the power to deploy
your emotions so easily?  The heart is a mystery.
And singers and poets have wrestled throughout history

to examine that moment when the old rules are done,
and you realize that, yes, 1 + 1 = 1.

—William Lindsey Cochran