LOVE IS NAUGHT

Love is naught but longing,
suffering, dying,
burning, staying silent,
being unworthy
yet adoring the torment.
Ah, how I die,
how I live,
how I yearn
for the sweet life
that will be my death.

So respectful is the love
of my muted affections
that my anguish does frighten me with
the sound it makes, not the pain it causes.

I suffer in silence and breathe not,
for if I breathe I fear
that even as I sleep my exhalations
do offend the silence.

My heart too does suspend
all its vital movement
that its sound be not heard
by the image within my breast.

Believing I offend, I worship not
the sacredness of the object,
I simply put myself in the hands
of the cause of my suffering.

I observe love’s
greatest miracle in my humble self,
for life nurtures itself on that
from which it is slowly dying.

Love is naught but longing,
suffering, dying,
burning, staying silent,
being unworthy
yet adoring the torment.
Ah, how I die,
how I live,
how I yearn
for the sweet life
that will be my death.