Untitled Plea

I may not be able to write music for you.
I will write this poem and more upon your heart,
if only to hope they will find their way upon it,
and you to them,
to guide your song of love for me.

Love you once did know.
Fear of loss
whether I or another,
I want to comfort and tell you that love is not yours to lose,
but only to gain, to lose and gain again.

We encounter love upon our travels and travails,
only to hold and cherish while it takes up temporary residency in our heart,
unconcerned over which borders it violates,
love cannot be owned.

Love refuses to be bought,
while as ants upon their teeming home,
we seek to buy the impossible
love cannot be bought.

It will only be granted in full measure,
to those who know themselves,
and in that, can begin to know others.
Love may come to those who are true, honest and virtuous.

Nevertheless, while we think we know this in our mind,
it must be lived in our heart and soul and blood,
before and if it is to have true deep meaning.
To live love, hearts must be gently loved and hurt, love torn in half
and lives turned inside out.

Then, then we shall see what remains, Yes?
The true unconstrained pure hard fire of love, honesty, truth and virtue?
Or a shadow of what could be,
faint echoes restrained by a restless unknowing heart
wandering upon sandy storm beaten stones.

I have walked many such coves,
stumbled over such hardened stones and beaten my head upon them!
Across the world I have wandered,
in search of love and all its attendant pluralities,
and all along I had it in my hands.
I thought I could own it.

In the end.
It owned me.
Taught me what it is and is not.
Showed me for a fool to have thought at all.

David McCullough
Copyright June 2, 2009
Rewritten from a March, 2004 poem.