David X Novak
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Discourse on Love


     And I: “My Lord, when I was setting out,
     I didn’t realize I was upon
     A journey of such gravity, as what
     Your words implied; but now that I have gone
     Along the crucifixion, I’ve begun
     To think the undertaking may well be
     Too grave and serious for anyone,
     The moreso for a dullard wretch like me,
Cowardly, and who understands not what he see.”
    
     And he: “It may well be that you have wandered
     Into the path unwittingly, but you
     Have reached the underworld; do not be hindered
     In keeping to primary causes true,
     Though you have bit off more than you can chew
     In your own estimation: nevermind,
     For, having started out, you must go through
     What torments lie ahead, which you may find
Survivable, as my Commedia should remind.
    
     “Out in the life that is a race to death
     So many people to themselves pretend
     That they, while yet the body still draws breath,
     Would like to come here; and so they, my friend,
     As many pleasant hours’ deception spend--
     When very few, while they remain alive
     Are given leave to come here, to descend
     Clothed in their mortal bodies. You must strive
To keep true to your path, although you not survive.
    
     “For what is there in death, besides this place?
     All souls, when they have died, must enter here,
     As even some, when they live in disgrace
     Which happens when the soul is insincere,
     Lose contact with their souls, which souls appear
     Bodiless in this nether realm; although
     According as your mind sees, we may wear
     The vestiges of flesh, yet even so
Observe, they cast no shadow, even as we go.”
    
     And as he spoke these words, I realized
     That though we two were seated on the plain
     Beside the river’s bank, I was surprised
     I hadn’t noticed it, and then again
     Thought back to all the souls that I had seen:
     Though seeming fleshly all, but only I
     Had cast a shadow—in the world of men
     What we take for a commonplace, falls by
The wayside; and I asked, “You mean that I might die.”
    
     And he: “I think that you can take my word,
     That you should meet your death within this place
     Remains unlikely; which if it occurred
     Would only mean your soul remained to trace
     Its path again, and that which you must face
     In torments surely lie ahead no less;
     But if you now return unto that race
     As far as you have come, to so digress,
Then there death will await you, you don’t have to guess.”
    
     There is no turning back, his words implied,
     Even as Lot’s wife; though it made me sad,
     Which Dante must have felt, because I sighed,
     And he said unto me: “It isn’t bad,
     For when the journey’s done you shall be glad.
     That which you undertake, though sorrow, strife
     Be yours, as one in poet’s mantle clad,
     Is nothing less than very human life
Run by all mortals. Love cuts deeper than a knife.
    
     “Even as Jesus died for us, and shed
     His blood that we might live free from our sins,
     So men must all, for they will soon be dead
     Along the race that no one ever wins.
     Not any human heart, when it begins
     To love which is to live, forgoes its portion
     Of sorrow which is man’s inheritance
     Since ever Eve’s and Adam’s fateful torsion,
Which led to banishment, and humankind’s distortion.”
    
     And I: “Then isn’t it better to have
     No wish for love?” I told him of the women
     That I had seen, who thirsty seem to crave
     What is the drink of life to any human,
     Though, as though guided by a vagrant omen
     Themselves from its procurement they have severed--
     “I know the thirst for love is very common,
     But would not we be best, if, when so fevered
With thirst for it, to stifle passion we endeavored?”
    
     And he: “It is impossible; within
     All human breasts that at the breast have nurtured,
     That have known mother’s love deeper than skin,
     The need is there, for love, which can’t be sutured,
     Which can’t be given up, though one is tortured,
     For love bears no retrenchments, and with love
     Sorrows must come, as summer’s apple orchard
     Becomes in winter, desolation’s grove;
Love bears this dual nature which none can remove.
    
     “As for those women, I believe you mean
     That stay within the pit of frowardness,
     Who have forsaken love, and so demean
     Themselves, though what the cause is they can’t guess:
     Did they not in contumacy so dress
     Themselves they would be fit to be a bride,
     But thirst for love is never rendered less
     Although it has been fully satisfied,
And they from sorrow even so could never hide.
    
     “In fact, had they not chosen to remain
     Self-satisfied within the pool of sloth,
     But loved and been loved, they would know the pain
     Of satisfaction and bereavement both;
     Which is perhaps the reason they are loath
     To act in such a way as but invites
     Love which provides a fertile undergrowth
     To all our human longings it requites,
Into their hearts: for less are fantasizing’s blights.
    
     “True love is cruel; a blade which cuts both as
     It enters and it leaves, and leaves its wound
     Forever on the heart once for always,
     No matter that the soul receiving swooned,
     Or that, in piercing, it nor made a sound.
     Yet souls such as those women’s which avoid
     The opportunity for love, yet found
     That they without it were not overjoyed,
But bitterly resentful at what they’ve destroyed.
    
     “Along with them, there is a pit of men
     Of those that were seducers”—here his eyes
     Focused on mine more gravely, as again
     His words continued, “who deeply despise
     The thought of love as something full of lies,
     Who seek their conquests which is but a way
     Their heart avoidance of the issue tries
     To get, which has to fail, as even they
May fall in love, by chance, as a seducer may.”
    
     He spoke no further words on that, but said
     “It’s best that we continue,” and so I
     Stood up with him, who has so long been dead,
     Restraining tears, though I wanted to cry,
     Distraught and comforted, with him nearby
     Who is my master, insofar the verse
     That I have written, if not aiming high,
     Holds any meaning for the world; far worse
Than I one time had hoped for following love’s course.
    
     But as he said, my business must be but
     To make my headway on the present path,
     And not to be diverted but to what
     Are worldly matters, worth nor praise nor wrath,
     Themselves superfluous; for so he hath
     Implied in bearing himself wholly grave,
     His whole life story but the aftermath
     Of an event in love, such as few have,
As even I received, forever after slave.
    
     And I: “My lord, you know what motivates me:
     A woman I have known and who has been
     As though a wife to me. Her love creates me,
     Though for a while I felt that love was sin;
     Whose debt, forever after, I am in,
     Because she taught me of the husband/wife
     Relation, which is very much akin
     To that between the Lord and man, as if
The one were patterned by the other’s hieroglyph.”
    
     And he: “That is correct. The love between
     A man and woman, is but a reflection
     Of human love for God, which, if not seen
     Must leave the heart alone without protection;
     Thereby God makes a natural selection
     Among his followers, and even those
     Who scorned his love, may later see election
     By their own souls, to seek what they had chose
Formerly to decry; for so life’s pattern goes.”
    
     And I: “When we are young, it isn’t odd
     That we are taught to worship, and believe;
     But one has a relationship with God
     That’s very different, when he has to leave
     The ramparts of his childhood, which deceive
     Him as to nature’s order, in the world,
     Though they came from his mother even. We’ve
     A different kind of love when we are hurled
Into our destiny, or when we are imperiled.
    
     “The woman that I loved taught me to love;
     Because she was submissive unto me
     I learned I must submit to God above,
     Whereby submitting, I am rendered free,
     Though those who love the world may not agree.
     For love is not, to me, a worldly thing,
     That can be purchased on a spending spree,
     Or even begged of favor from a king,
But rather, limitless, beyond all cornering.”
    
     And he: “You say you knew this woman as
     Your wife, and yet the two of you weren’t married,
     Is that correct?” And I: “It came to pass
     Because of that that everything miscarried,
     For when I should have acted, then I tarried,
     By when it was too late. Within my mind,
     I acted as a man distracted, harried,
     With better things to do, and so I find
In retrospect, though loving, I was wholly blind.”
    
     “It’s good that you accept the blame you bear,”
     Said he, “but as for your love’s restitution,
     You can’t expect to ever find it here,
     Within the underrealm, though contribution
     Here may be found to clearing the pollution
     Of errant patterns your mind may accept
     Even unknown to you, through dissolution,
     For we in self-deceit were born adept,
Children of Eve, since ever man from Eden stepped.”
    
     And I: “Beside her there was only one
     I ever loved, with purest love sincere
     And genuine, though childhood is long gone,
     A star by which love’s bark I tried to steer,
     Though I perhaps had not seen it so clear
     As her by whom your own path had been mapped,
     But such is childhood, such loves as endear
     Us to them as a boy, we may be apt
To lose from sight, as to life’s changes we adapt.
    
     “Master, I loved her from when I was eight,
     And I don’t need to tell you all the story,
     Because that love my life shall demarcate
     Though I may not attain the poet’s glory;
     And every verse I write, as laudatory
     Of love, in some way is but the reflection
     Of that which, though my memory grows hoary,
     I felt for her, though love beyond detection
Of any who observed. She gave my life direction.
    
     “I loved her till the time when I had entered
     On high school, when a boy becomes a man,
     Whereat my flighty heart was often centered
     On this or that young lady; clearly an
     Inferior attraction, each one, than
     The one whom I had loved so faithfully,
     And of whose love I was custodian,
     Which first love was forgotten, so, by me,
At high school, as though it had never seemed to be.
    
     “I lost sight of my love for other things,
     As in his early manhood young man feels
     So many different passions, each which brings
     Him into new experience, and steals
     His time from him as to and fro he reels
     From this or that adventure, and I had
     My share of them, but none which greatly seals
     My destiny as she, if I may add
Whose name was Bonnie, that I loved when just a lad.”
    
     Hearing the mention of her name, he sighed,
     For I knew he was thinking other things,
     “But she was never destined for my bride,
     As I flew from her with untempered wings
     Intemperate, though young men from the stings
     Of some of their adventures don’t recover,
     And I, if not into so many flings,
     Yet in my own way quite became the rover,
Forgetting my first love, as something dead and over.
    
     “Little did I know, that the seed, once planted
     Within a heart, though it be choked by weeds,
     Is not so easily dislodged, supplanted,
     Though we may make the effort in our deeds,
     As man unto his baser nature cedes
     Authority, than rather to that love
     Remembered from his youth; but that impedes
     His true love’s progress merely, which may prove
No more than detriment, if willed by God above.
    
     “So as a man, still young, but older than
     A man who is in school, when sometime later
     I felt that early passion, as you can
     Imagine, and its purity was greater
     Than any since I had become the traitor
     To my first self, well, as you may have guessed
     That to my second love was instigator
     As by a path circuitous progressed--
But here my speaking shames me; keeping quiet is best.”
    
     And he: “That which you’ve tried to do may strike
     You as immoral, even worthy shame,
     But I assure you, speak howso you like,
     For just along this path all poets came
     Who have preceded you, though great in name,
     Or though consigned unto obscurity,
     Which, for the soul involved, is just the same;
     For in this realm, the truth of poetry
Has been revealed, and matters less than people see.
    
     “Out in the world the words a poet speaks
     May have importance, for a time, but none
     Unto himself; save as such meaning leaks
     Backwards across the lines that he has done,
     But wholly unperceived by anyone,
     And for that he has greater poets than
     Himself to turn to, who more neatly spun
     The tale of love, than in his verse he can:
But you retain the memory whence love began.
    
     “To have known such a love, and but to trace
     Its lineaments, although the ink may blot,
     Shall keep the wide world staring at its face,
     Though they don’t really know what they have got,
     Because love is, but as it is, is not.
     Retrace a fond description of your love,
     Her face, her eyes, you need no other plot,
     As though it were a fiction that you strove
But to embellish, empty fabrication wove.”
    
     And I: “So I have felt. The love I had
     Surpassed all in her beauty, but not just
     Her outward lineaments, which were not bad,
     But in her inner spirit, whereby lust
     Was tamed and calmed, but not so that it must
     Shrivel and die; for lust that has been tempered
     By love within that union of sweet trust
     Transforms its substance, never being hampered,
Whereby it is sustained, instead of being dampered.”
    
     And he: “The pleasures of the body have
     Waylaid you in their time, it seems to me?”
     And I: “My lord, before I was a slave
     To all the body’s proddings■ urgently
     Impelling me to places that would be
     Unworthy of my mention; I had no
     Conception that the heart’s agility
     Could make me solve the problem even so,
For many years had passed, before I came to know.”
    
     And he: “Try as a man might to advise
     A younger one, his son, perhaps, what kind
     Of deep obstruction in his pathway lies,
     None ever can; for each soul is consigned
     To learn it for himself, which shapes the mind
     Into its many different variants;
     But rest contented, all men equal find
     The problem so perplexing, what each wants
At variance with what before his view presents.
    
     “Try as we might, we talk in parables,
     Hints and suggestions, or else is created
     Monstrosities worse than imagined hells,
     Though hell on earth is so perpetuated,
     To which it intimately is related--
     The words we leave behind but intimate,
     But each soul on its own alone is fated
     To try its skill at making sense of fate,
As even with the Gospel truth forever great.
    
     “I see you have adjudged sins of the body
     Really aren’t sinful in themselves, but rather
     To the extent the soul may act ungodly,
     In distancing itself from God the Father.
     To fornicate is not so great to gather
     Forever admonition from all men,
     Except the soul that goes that road go farther
     From God and find itself trapped in a pen,
Which gotten into can be hard to leave again.
    
     “To fornicate is not so great as murder,
     For murder may deprive us of a man,
     Yet fornication renders law absurder
     Than chaos, when allowed, over a span
     Of time to so corrupt a healthy clan;
     Because when fornication reigns supreme
     Between our men and women, it but can
     Reduce all love into a fancied dream
Deserving mockery, while money gains esteem.”
    
     And I: “These issues have been no small weight
     Upon my mind, as even so they dragged
     My soul into extremes, since I was eight,
     Nor have I of success today yet bragged
     In finding resolution; but unfagged
     By former failures of my moral part,
     I learned, as you say, every soul is plagued
     By certain perturbations of the heart,
But that regeneration with the Lord doth start.
    
     “For I believe he looks upon us kindly
     Despite transgressions such as may occur
     In any human life—please don’t remind me,
     Whose own transgressions in ten thousands were,
     Or at least very high—which shouldn’t spur
     Our souls to seek to revel in transgressing,
     But rather, gently prod us to defer
     Unto such love his law has been expressing
For these millenniums, without too great repressing.
    
     “An errant such as that Marquis de Sade
     Who made a habit of making transgressions
     Explicitly against the word of God,
     Both in imagined and in factual sessions
     As we may know from reading his confessions,
     Explicitly transgressed against the letter
     Of law in so directing all his passions
     Because law’s spirit he had not known better,
And so became crime’s perpetrator and abettor.”
    
     And he: “Exactly so.” While we conversed
     We hadn’t stopped from walking for a minute
     Beside the river that must quench all thirst,
     For God created it and did begin it
     So that our sorrows might be all drowned in it;
     And while we strolled I noticed that the trees
     Along our route were filled with birds, a linnet
     Perhaps it was flew by me in the breeze,
While keeping pace, such tranquil feelings my heart seize.
    
     So I continued speaking: “I had felt
     Myself to have been an abomination,
     Although before the Lord’s throne I had knelt,
     Because of having fallen to temptation,
     And giving him my heartfelt explanation;
     But now I understand, I had been caught
     As by virtue of moral education,
     Because while my path truly had been fraught
With great temptations, some things I was falsely taught.”
    
     And he: “Such is the case when we rely
     Upon the law as our sole instrument,
     Our sole adjudicator, creed, whereby
     We measure as inflexibly, unbent,
     Though there are always questions of intent
     To be considered. God who is the judge
     Is slow to anger; if that we repent
     It makes him happy, and he likes to nudge,
But doesn’t rashly banish with an unbending grudge.”
    
     And I: “The passions of the body were
     A spite to me so long, but as a candle
     Is lost beside a bonfire, so in her
     My passions, though love proved too hot to handle,
     And I upon her love proved myself vandal
     Because I was unfit, so I found out
     To even stoop and help her tie her sandal,
     Yet having known a love that was devout,
In losing her I tried my energies to rout.
    
     “She taught me how to love her as a man,
     And I found out, a man must have control
     Of his own passions first, before he can
     Take charge of any other’s body, soul,
     As woman must surrender to man whole;
     For if a man remains a slave to sex,
     It will preclude him from his highest goal
     As even from his lowest, and so vex
His heart’s ambitions, though it may his muscles flex.
    
     “When circumstances saw us separated
     I gained in strength, instead of rather losing,
     For her sweet love had so regenerated
     My utter being, that love has had no closing
     As easily had been my first supposing,
     For I have learned a man must be the master
     Of his own self, before he go proposing
     To master any other, which disaster
Surely invites, though men proceed there fast and faster.
    
     “She gave herself to me, but she was firm
     That in commanding I must also love
     The Lord, which prospect early made me squirm
     Because I felt I didn’t love enough,
     And so our road together started tough,
     But as the time wore on so love saw smoothed
     Our difficulties, as the very stuff
     Of love, like yeast, expanded, calmed and soothed
Our hearts—though later came a monster fully toothed.”
    
     And he: “If she had not taught you that lesson
     Then you had never made it to this river,
     Which fact is fine and good, but doesn’t lessen
     Our moment’s impetus. Each soul is striver
     For that which but true-love can help deliver,
     But sometimes souls, in seeking good, fall prey,
     And, though their torment be to scald or shiver,
     In each extreme the soul can fall astray,
As you had learned, or else you would have her today.”
    
     “Master,” I said, in words that seemed to choke,
     “I know not by what impetus I fell
     Astray,” and here the tears that welled now broke
     The ramparts of their dam, and fell pell-mell
     Profusely more than words could ever quell,
     Because his words a tender chord did strike
     Within my heart, though what I couldn’t tell
     And I had no way to shore up the dyke,
But even as we walked, wept like a little tyke.