The Nature of Love

With apologies to the Romantic poets, and to TS Eliot, to whom this is humbly and reverently dedicated.

Often I sit and muse on the nature of love
And my role in the scheme of things;
Of love and lovers and dear ones,
Of those too close to bear to lose.

Of parents to whom all respect
Is due; and brothers, who, over time
Grow distant with passing age
Their lives a pale copy of former climes.

Of children; those fruit of my loins
And those of theirs, those precious coins
These tokens of love whose lives become
Treasure to me in my immortality.

And of lovers; those men who gave
But mostly took my love
Who left me grieving over them
Swearing never to love again;

I have loved too much in my way,
Lust which died far too soon,
Passion which withered like a leaf
In autumn, drying and browning.

Love left me sour, dried, regretful,
Wanting to leave, needing to go,
Trying to find a way
From a coming winter of loneliness.

For more is needed, more is wanted,
Life is empty when love is spent,
Life needs love to feel alive,
Life not lived when love has died.

But I remember, then, that I cannot go,
Those children, those calls on my life
Who are all of life to me
Need my life for theirs to grow.

But am I that only? A mother, a grandam,
Sitting and sewing and advising those ones
Who make the same mistakes
So much like myself?

But is it my place; my role my duty,
To sit and sew and advise the young,
Growing old and dry and passionless,
Dry and lonely within a crowd?

For love is many things,
Agape, philia, eros, and
Even storge, thelema;
All have their place in the grand scheme;

For all my age I am young at heart,
Willing Eros to mark me with his little dart
And give me that which I thought had gone,
Along with youth and relentless time;

For time is the enemy in all these things,
Love grows and wanes with time;
Time changes those whose love is best
As time changes those who are left;

Eros comes and goes, passion and lust,
Time not dimming or changing much;
All is there for someone to come
And pick up on the continuing need.

And if indeed Eros’ dart struck
Would he give me back my youth again,
Would love make me young once more
Turn back time’s relentlessness?

No; love won’t stop time,
But time stops with love, pauses;
Time passes in another realm,
Love surpasses everything.

For love is needed, required;
Even for an advising grandam,
The matriarch sitting and advising
Needs love in all its forms.

Love in all its forms, all its ways
Lives in all of us, all our days,
The need not dying with passing time
Indeed time passing the only crime.

For love is powerful and must
Like time, pass from stage to stage.
Like time, it has seasons that grow and wane,
Love changes as times progress.

But of all that time has checked,
Eros is the one that time has bid -
Goodnight: with age comes loneliness.
Eros is youth and youth won’t stay.

For all the talk of love, in all its ways:
Agape and philia and eros,
Love and lust and brotherly care
Love, agape, is what keeps me here.


13 March 2008