Love is born of grief.
Not the love we seek as consolation
but a Love that embraces all things –
that does not judge them right or wrong;
a Love that is not locked into a morality
which provides certainty
in an uncertain existence.
Love has to do with
a quality of compassion
and a lightness of being
that comes of letting slip
from one one’s shoulders
all the expectations
and all the protest-
first the heavy armour,
then the sturdy cloaks,
and finally,
the last soft silks-
garments that have been, for us,
a “No!” to what life has offered.
Poem by Anne Hillman