Love is apart from all things. <br />Desire and excitement are nothing beside it. <br />It is not the body that finds love. <br />What leads us there is the body. <br />What is not love provokes it. <br />What is not love quenches it. <br />Love lays hold of everything we know. <br />The passions which are called love <br />also change everything to a newness <br />at first. Passion is clearly the path <br />but does not bring us to love. <br />It opens the castle of our spirit <br />so that we might find the love which is <br />a mystery hidden there. <br />Love is one of many great fires. <br />Passion is a fire made of many woods, <br />each of which gives off its special odor <br />so we can know the many kinds <br />that are not love. Passion is the paper <br />and twigs that kindle the flames <br />but cannot sustain them. Desire perishes <br />because it tries to be love. <br />Love is eaten away by appetite. <br />Love does not last, but it is different <br />from the passions that do not last. <br />Love lasts by not lasting. <br />Isaiah said each man walks in his own fire <br />for his sins. Love allows us to walk <br />in the sweet music of our particular heart.<br /><br />Jack Gilbert<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-great-fires/
