The Fear of Love
"[...] and so much surrender to who knows what." — D. Ramirez, in conversation
Guilty as I am of dust and sin
And arrogation, overweening pride
And cruelties both idle and well-whetted—
Guilty, though aware within my guilt
Of no more guilt than my guilt lets me see—
Guilty, Lord, and cowering in shame
Afraid of facing further depravations:
Too petrified to plumb my wickedness
From the dread of having to, then, pay
The price of holding fast to such self-knowledge:
Suffering and sacrifice and change.
Quiet and insistent grace remains—
Sometimes she is gentle:
Transformation can be ecstasy
Just as it can be humiliation—
Still… I am hard of head and heart
And some stones must be broken.
Though, life need not be doldrumed nor
Must every pain or pleasure
Be so perfectly attentioned.
Why my desperate defense of delusion—
What is guilt but debt I can’t repay?
All of this forgivenesss gets new debt
Which must be honoured, though it’s not called in:
The price that I must pay for perfect love
Is nothing less than fear.
Thank you for reading The Brass Bull. I hope this poem finds your Lent, whether you are observing it or not, as a welcome guest. I’ll skip the continued apologies for the tortoise-like rate of posts from here on out; these things generally take me ages to write and what backlog I had was mostly exhausted last year. Poems will show up when they are ready to make their debut into general society. Essays/Assays/Assails will pop up as the whim strikes me—but they are something of distractions from my real work here.
I must say, it’s rather nice not taking subscriptions as it means I can allow my work to develop at its own pace without adding further guilt to my already weighty load.
If you enjoyed this poem, why not be charitable and, like your parents worked so very hard to try to teach you when you were yet young and (mostly) innocent,