Literature and the Arts

Rapture of the Deep

How precious were those moments! Each more real,

more limned in breathing heartbeats, wrapped in warmth,

than many other moments all together. What is that depth

that I should rise from it forgetting, rise to feel

this blurring of the clear? There is no breadth

the soul cannot encompass, no set width;

so there should be no decompression now to steal

those moments and retain them in the dark,

that if again I were to know them I must go

down, back down, into the past, or into those places slow

still, still having the same light and scent, marked

and tasting of your presence. I live above that water now,

but would sound those depths again if I knew how.

SERIES: "IF THIS BE LOVE"

If this be love, then life holds naught for me,

Nothing of greater truth than its embrace,

Nor can life be understood until I see

Into every looming room behind each face,

Where the soul's mansion stretches placidly

From room to room: a vast and changing place.

But if it would be only mine I see

My empire would become a tiny place.

So Love is more than love, so much indeed

That I can only do my best to guess

What I must do -- and then proceed.

I don't know either. Mea culpa; I confess.

But if this be love: That I must give to have,

I will give all, and so my whole soul save.

If this be love, then life holds naught for me,

But love is more than this, and I am free

To believe what I will. My life is mine;

And mine my will, not to fall to the plea

That love is to command or to confine.

Love is to stretch and soar, and to align

Each reaching soul to each; theology

Of masters, practised by men, and in wine

Symbolizing the greatest stretch of all,

Through death to life in reciprocity:

Infinite to Finite, th'encircling call

Reflected in the mirror's of Love's hall

Where through the heart and soul and mind we see

Our love shine as Eve before the Fall.

III

(INAMORATE VIGOR I: for Dante)

If this be love, then life holds naught for me,

Naught greater in all of eternity

And beyond, and before. Since first the Word

Moved in Thought Love was; then in Flesh freely

Once living, to be felt as well as heard.

Ruby-lipped Magdalen His rebuke endured

And still loved, instinctively and truly

Treasuring that habit which could not be cured.

Enter Darkness; so suddenly alone,

Venturing through thirteen hundred years

In hopeful search. O'er Florence the way clears,

Gracefully beckoning Love to come home.

O Dante! Brash young mortal unaware

Radiance divine streams from Beatrice' hair.

(INAMORATE VIGOR II: for Dante)

If this be love, then life holds naught for me,

Naught greater in all of eternity

And beyond, and before: For Love has dwelt

More than always in our Reality --

O Real Flesh dying the death that we were dealt!

Real as the love that Magdalena felt

And treasured, instinctively and truly

Turning her trammeled heart to watch it melt.

Earth grasped love, and stumbled, rose struggling,

Visions dancing as Amour and Allah

In West and East. Then Love returning

Gyres and bedazzles o'er a bridge. Nova!

O! 'Round Beatrice the heavens opening

Reveal the Vita Nuov'of which I sing.

(But Nobody Ever Said It Would Be Easy)

If this be love, then life holds naught for me,

Nothing of greater Truth than its embrace;

And sweeter far than any victory

Is to be overtaken as I race,

And as I spiral through eternity,

To see shadows of heav'n in my love's face.

If this be love, why then, this is my plea:

That I may always dwell in its embrace.

If this be love, I repeat these words again:

This also is Thou; neither is this Thou.

Lifegiving as the sun, and driving rain,

Through clouds we glimpse the joy again somehow --

And turn, and live; and every pain is gain:

A scar runs proudly 'cross my lover's brow.

If this be love: That I must give to have,

I will give all, and so my whole soul save.