And such is love:
We are born inside of love, delivered into a harsh world, which sends us a welcoming embrace, a soothing voice and breasts to nourish. Our cord severed, we grow up among friends only to leave them and learn of loss as soon as our grip tightens. We fall deep within a well, back in love, first cautiously, then rapidly, painfully, within a dark cavity that feels almost as comforting as the one from which we first peeked into this world. We lose sight and see with our hearts, later develop cupid’s wings, and while floating outside back into the conniving world, await our next fall.
As the morn awakens the reality of love, the work begins, feelings fade.
Always conflicted, we are partly rooted, partly in flight toward The Holy.
Rarely does one find a love in another that completes all desires, all needs. Rumi found such a love in Shams, and he was transformed. Like an endless river, the most beautiful poetry and meaningful prose flowed from his lips, effortlessly. Most of us, if fortunate, find temporary, fractured promises in another, as they do in us. We complete our yearnings for the lost connection through a friend who listens well because his pain is diminished in knowing that ours is greater, a mentor who must teach or become extinct, a neighbor who knows just how to waste time, a fellow collector of stamps equally compulsive, a lover who knows what not to say after it’s all over.
We are sick, our beloved, our drug.
Love's rainbow is infinite, yet the flood is the promise.
And such is love: We are born one day, we love one day, and we die one day. We find pieces of a puzzle that is love in people whose paths we cross. Some fit naturally, others need a forceful nudge. Not until our last minutes, our final breaths, do we get a glimpse into Real Love. Few, like Rumi, see the Face of God in the beloved.
We enter this world with our fists tight, poised for a fight, grabbing onto a golden calf; we exit with our hands wide open, devoid of anchoring possessions, surrendered to Eternal Love.
In the end love consists of this: Incomplete promises by two jagged souls that collide to generate a spark which bursts into a consuming flame that lights the moment between the darkness before birth and the darkness after death.
