Love

Let’s talk about love.

Why not? Everybody does:

Poets, songwriters, clergyman,

Even a scientist or two.

The word is on everyone’s lips.

But what of it?

Talk is cheap.

So say the cynics, and love,

Poor virtue, seems to be

Much more talked about

Than practiced,

Or perhaps mislabeled.

I don’t pretend to know love,

Human love, in its purest form.

Uncorrupted by self interest,

Or lust, easier to identify

Sometimes by its absence..

It can be counterfeited.

What I do know of love,

Or maybe think I know

Is that it is evanescent

Far more often than obvious

And rarer than I’d like to think

Though much commoner

Than I give it credit for.

I also know

That love is absolutely essential

For human life,

That it must be given away

To be received

That the model for love

Is divine, and I can only hope

My puny efforts at imitating same

Are enough.

Chip Bergeron

1 January 2012