The Salvation of Love And Love as Salvation by Laurence Robert Cohen - HTML preview

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(251) Works Of Love IV

Love Seeks Not Its Own

 

Language of Possession

 

Language is inadequate

To express love's full condition

It seems all words are predicate

In the assumption of possession

Yours and mine are not just words

But present signs of separation

When they speak, what can be heard

It is a semblance of domination

 

We can barely express self-renunciation

Without invoking what is mine

And when I speak in admiration

Is it something of yours I find?

Friendship and love erotic

May be generous, but still they own

In these terms, they are quixotic

They can't enter this love unknown

 

Love achieves its highest blessedness

When true lovers possess not their spirit

The abject poverty of their selflessness

Beyond language and its material limits

Self-renunciation brings us close to heaven

Liberates us from the worries of having

No longer would we feel even slightly driven

Or for anything feel some craving

 

The true lovers seek not their own

Have surrendered all sense of exchange

In this light, love's truth is well known

For for them all life has changed