offer themselves upon the altar
of the three afflictions:
body, mind and heart: suffer
everything that they can find;
and strangely, yet we love them;
do what we can; fail; sigh;
and start afresh – as they,
bruised, self-tortured, in that cause
which we can only hope one day
that they themselves – if they survive –
may realise in a burst of glory:
long-awaited, pent-up glory:
dissolve, surrender with a relief
as great as friendship, as the human race,
into the love we always had for them
which is as nothing, to the love
which they at last discover that they have
for their immortal self. Yes, how much we love them
beyond all reason; seeing ourselves in them;
loving love; as ever love calls us to do.