Love in My Life

They must not forget, when they love, that they are beginners, bunglers

of life, apprentices in love must learn love, and that—like 

all learning—wants peace, patience, and composure.

~ Rainer Marie Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

When you went to death,

dropped by heart attack

at age forty six,

I dropped, too, gulped

and swallowed love

for two decades.

But love has not been

fallow in the fields

of my being, you have

pointed to under

currents of Godness

that I swam toward.

Since you tilled my fields

they continue to

grow, since you sowed them

the crop still includes

you, the harvest love—

what you mean to me

Is never a drought,

never an absence—

and this is Heaven

on Earth, how earthly

love informs deeper

spirit, love and pain.

So walking in this

pine forest my eyes

see God’s champions

in separate need-

les and bark, branches,

each tree, each circle

of six trees, forest

with deep red needled

carpet underfoot,

I walk among love

below and above

inside and outside.

So attending to

business and health

in complex city

daze with few hours

of respite is love

I carry God with me

Because I knew love,

love grew into an

intention that pours

from my fecund hands

at work and play—I

grow words in furrows. 

I see cardinals

today—two in my

yard, love—meet friends for

lunch, love—each fork full

a praise, love—later

protest out of love.

Love crosses borders,

and quarantines.  Love

ignores walls, weapons

and weariness.  I say

I am tired, and

love answers Go on.

Love of my life grew

and pointed to love 

in life, a path I

could have ignored in

sorrow but chose as

apprenticeship, love.

 Inspired by Marian's prompt Love of My Life

at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

Copyright © 2014 S.L.Chast