I am not fond of
love,
for love, as I was
taught
from infancy
(and learned my lessons well) –
love
is but a word
that
those who
do not
love employ
to cast a
rosy glow,
a pleasant light
that covers over
greed and
tyranny, punishment
and
grasping power;
a sort of love that
takes and takes
and takes again,
until no thing
remains
but a lone
and lorn and
desperate shell of
the once integral
Self of the beloved.
No.
I am not
fond of love.
I am not fond of
love
for the love I
practiced
(having learned my lessons well)
was
a grim, grasping
contest
between lover and beloved
to
discover which could
first
call out the strength,
the
power, the very Self
from
the other, all the
while
protecting, deep within,
any
slight, small vestige of Truth, of
Being,
lest that Being, offered
as
untimely sacrifice, should be taken, taken,
taken
until nothing was left but the
lone and lorn and
desperate shell of the
once integral
Self of the beloved.
No.
I am not
fond of love.
As I have said, I am not fond of
love,
(having learned my lessons well)
And yet –
as life moves forward into
age
I find myself by slow, distrustful
steps
arriving at new thoughts, new insights.
Can it be
that love is not what I have learned to know so
well,
but rather (as I scarcely care to think)
an
odd and muddled combination
of
respect, affection, distance, and
acceptance;
a place, a process where
warmth
is offered, taken,
shared
until the glad and growing
Selves
of lover and beloved swell with
pleasure
and with power.
If this is love (as I hardly dare
believe)
then, someday (perhaps)
I might
become
quite
fond of love.
Sr.
Sue Elwyn, SSJD, Victoria
March,
July November, 2016
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