It will come — unsystematic,

Demanding no one’s consent —

Suddenly lodging in the rear of the heart:

Silence and clang, and sense, and secret.

It doesn’t know its own shores,

Doesn’t know ice, doesn’t know thaw —

It’s birdsong sky in a field of rye,

It’s a cry over an unsung line.

And yet it shall be love!

Not the kind that burns like a Sorish polypore,

But the kind that quietly floods with pale-blue

Light — the light of foolish patches on snow.

And yet it shall be love!

It will lift from your shoulders and heal —

A gentle friend, her face turned sideways

To those who stare into the dark.

It doesn’t ask what to prepare for,

Doesn’t beg, doesn’t promise —

Just be, just breathe, just live,

And yet it shall be love.