Love in me is running deep,
Not as drowsy, leisure sleep,
But agitated as a river flowing,
Thus running every turn until,
It’s reaching open water’s fill.
A sigh in the dark—can you hear it?
There moves a different love at random,
Aspersion of a lover’s lingering kiss,
It’s an innocent heart’s phantom, but
Finding an unexpected bliss, this!
Even though real love the crystalline
Which fuses into loftier views long
Before friendship meets a throng.
You, dear, no longer a distant speck,
No more fear as if
In bleak desolation wrecked.
Joy has revived in you the lure
For love; for a love true and pure,
Thus sacred fate has joined two strangers,
Yet, you entertain imaginary dangers:
In belief, a forced separation arose;
Cruel cause -- and your couch of woes.
For me the voice of honor slighted,
Can trust and love be divided?
Why? Can love be so small?
Appearing as if with a comet’s tail endowed,
For a moment shining bright, and then,
After a brief passionate flight, disappearing,
To fill a grave! What is its cost?
Little love, like a fall of dust the loss!
O dismiss such empty contemplation,
For I know you’re trying to stand
As guardian at life’s station,
The purpose of this faithful annul, is
Human responsibility’s unrivalled channel--
But then -- once pure love is gained,
Sacred beyond all thought, the final step
Love inspects. Yes, it tries the Lord’s elect!
Well, God is Truth, and Truth is good to Self.
So -- why put such an alliance on a shelf?
Needed communications banished --
Heart-to-heart joy vanished. Or did you try
To guard your brooding, and so
Hiding from a gentle soul’s intruding?
Married to a customary life; love dormant,
Mind observes, “What useless torment?”
Can a longing for mutual devotion
Appear to some as frivolous notion?
Why say, “Never have I been a bold
Champion ever, though with some endeavor,
Cheered by love’s reinforcement,”--
And with my fair endorsement …
Still -- all is vain? No! Love IS gain!
The rays of the morning light nearer,
Looking into a loftier mirror -- do you see,
Both of us need to agree
If it’s best for us we parted
From that, which love so promisingly started.
If you answer, ”Yes!” then for my sake,
Help to soothe and smooth such thoughts
That stream into my decisions wake,
(Some emotional stake), as I bend,
Asking you, “Please stop dropping
Daily notes into my e-mail box.”
Back to you, dearest, though, I blush
To have dilated long and late; I’m saddened
To abandon you to loveless fate, but
Know I do not turn my back on
Joy-filled times we had -- they’ll linger,
And no regrets intermingle.
Beneath a lustrous morning sky,
Graciously I wait with
Unfaltering tenderness to
Resolve to end it after all -- but
Giving thought not to jump or stall --
Is that too much to be astonished at?
There is no distrust, swift advancer, but ask,
To whose prayer did the heavens answer?
Woe! Above lost love may slumber soon
The pale disk of a silent moon …
EPILOGUE
As unfaltering passion was banished,
His pledge once sincere, turned and vanished --
O impetuous currents of wind! But the lamb in her grief
Was sustained by her firm belief in her Shepherd --
Who steady in his pace—with gentle love for each,
Never leaves, however long the need.
All conditional love is a form of dreaming,
For we do not always see the weaning off human desires
To lead us back to our true self, in its fullest meaning.
Worldly love keeps us too often stuck in selfish mire, until
We surrender it back … and
On bright shining beams of mutual help,
We bend in humility. How then
Can we true love lack?
--eva-maria hogrefe--
(February 2010)
