My Relentless Belief In Love Poem by Romella Kitchens

Thatches and thatches of poems about love. I have written poems about the human condition and the need for love as a general reality for decade after decade.
From before the womb, within the womb and after the womb love has been my water, my vital crust of replenishing bread.
I have a belief that love can heal, cure, correct, create re-birth.
Every new tree is love to me.
Every lisping, croaking frog.
Every mercy even after the unmerciful has happened.
Every sunset painted on the canvas of the world
by God is LOVE.
Then, once at a poetry reading I deigned to mention humanity needing love in a poem and a friend pounced on me like a tiger after the reading and laughing said:
'Romella, certainly you can not believe in love.
It is just a notion we human beings get every
few generations when things are going badly politically or societally and we need to coalesce.
Hippies construed it the time before this or someone else. This time it's a rally call against police brutality.'
I smiled and sipped my ice tea then said:
'Love was before you, your past you and your future you.
No. I believe in love whether it is sunny or rainy.
I believe love is from God and we must not deny his place in our lives. No, count me out of the new belief there is no love.'
A brilliant woman, she stared at me in amazement and then with this sad-eyed expression of pity then moved on to speak to others.
I took in a deep breath and smiled:
On a deep blue evening, before the Visigoths of hatred, I had stood up for love.
And, if you leave the area after I do it, that
leaves more room for it and for me.