The Watcher

The love that does not touch, that makes

     no penetration,

requires no mirror back to verify

that what is real is real.

This love excels all lovers.

The unmailed letter superior

     to the letter returned unread,

the passion that leaves the eye

     as a gift to beauty.

Love thus, in secret, and love again.

Enlarge the heart

     (O it has many chambers!)

If the loved one be as oblivious

     as a fieldstone,

so be it! Moss clings, sun warms,

water wears down — there are many ways

to make love to granite.

You say the love you give

is not returned to you?

Leave to the bankers

the keeping of balances,

the squeezing out

     of interest.

Love is returned, somehow,

in the ease of future loving,

the cavalcade of youth

pressing on by

as you watch from the café window,

marveling there is so much in you

beaming back at them,

so many qualities and curves,

neck napes and striding legs,

sungold, raven black and pumpkin hair,

and the gemstone eyes

of onyx, turquoise, emerald and hazel —

what would they be

if you were not there to love them?

what coal-mine darkness

    would they walk in,

if we did not spark them

with our admiration.

Be not jealous of touching.

Does not the air,

   thick with the ghosts

      of the world’s love cries

press down upon you?

Do not the star lamps

warm you? Does not the tide

crash out your name

upon the lonely cliffs?

Without desire, the universe

would cool to neutrons;

the whirligig of being

would slow to a stop.

So storm out! radiate

your unsought affections,

the passing poet, taking nothing,

     giving all.

(2001 -- Providence, RI)