To Be in Love

Gwendolyn Brooks’s “To Be in Love” expresses what it is like to fall in love with another person and face the anxiety of how to declare that love. To fall in love, the speaker suggests, in the opening image, is “to touch with a lighter hand” (Line 2), which means that they are attempting to hold love without grasping too tightly. They do not wish to crush or harm. This careful respect will enable the speaker to “stretch” (Line 3) within themselves and feel “well” (Line 3). The wording here suggests that love cannot be greedily clutched but needs to be given a certain level of freedom.

Being gentle in this stage gives the speaker insight into how the beloved sees the world: “You look at things / Through his eyes” (Lines 4-5). As often happens with heightened emotion, objects become bright and hyper-real, exhibited by the close attention paid to “A Cardinal is red. / A sky is blue” (Lines 6-7). The matter-of-factness to these statements also shows how love feels like an organic extension of daily living—a natural occurrence. The speaker is sure that the beloved will also experience the same kind of enhancement of their world as well: “Suddenly you know he knows too” (Line 8), they say. The word romance comes in part from the Old French word roman, or story. Sharing a story is part of falling in love because it creates a bond. This bond is expressed by the speaker’s notation that “you are tasting together / The winter, or a light spring weather” (Lines 10-11). Tying shared love to the outer world—the colors and weather found in nature—makes it seem inevitable, while moving from “winter” (Line 11) to “spring” (Line 11) suggests longevity. All of this suggests that holding love without clinging will create solidity.

However, maintaining this loose grip can prove overwhelming, “too much to bear” (Line 13). While not wanting or demanding too much from the beloved can seem ideal, it is sometimes difficult not to want to go deeper and ask for greater definition and/or commitment. The speaker’s fight against this desire creates a lack of honesty on their part because they don’t want to disrupt the status quo of the relationship. “You cannot look in his eyes” (Line 14), the speaker thinks, “Because your pulse must not say / What must not be said” (Lines 15-16). The quickening of the heartbeat, which is a physiological response to love, indicates the speaker’s deeper love for the beloved, which is something they are hiding. Although it is unclear why the speaker feels that their feelings “must not be said” (Line 16), nor why the beloved may not want to hear them, they cannot be acknowledged without fear of harming the relationship.

This is then exacerbated by time apart from the beloved. When “he / Shuts a door” (Lines 17-18) or simply “is not there” (Line 19), there is nothing physical to hold onto, and the speaker’s “arms are water” (Line 20). Additional fears begin to rise without shared proximity. In separation, the speaker experiences a loneliness they feel is calamitous, a “ghastly freedom” (Line 22). This is contradictory to the earlier feeling of perceived unity. Now, with the absence of the beloved, the speaker feels cut off and incomplete. They are “the beautiful half / Of a golden hurt” (Lines 23-24). Open love without demand—while pleasing in intimate moments—also leaves the speaker feeling unmoored, aching for the beloved’s return. When they think of their loved one’s “mouth” (Line 25), it is with need, for them “to touch, to whisper on” (26). This suggests that the speaker has developed an addiction to the beloved and is no longer able to touch with a “lighter hand” (Line 2).

The speaker feels that demanding any kind of commitment would be deadly for the relationship. If they were to “declare” (Line 27) their love, it would cause its “certain Death” (Line 28). Further, to “apprize” (Line 29) or notify the beloved of their feelings would “mesmerize” (Line 30) the couple, causing each to dwell on the meaning behind their attraction. This tendency toward analysis would ruin the fluidity of their organic connection previously seen, and perhaps cause the end to their relationship. Appraisal or measurement of how their love works, or where it is going, would turn it in to “commonest ash” (Line 32). Its special uniqueness, represented as a “Column of Gold” (Line 31), would “fall down” (Line 31). This suggests that “to be in love” is to be held in suspension, unsure of how to navigate its depths.