The Four Letters of LOVE

‘IMMORTAL LOVE!….Press drop to drop, to atom atom mind,/ Link sex to sex, or rivet mind to mind;/ Attend my song – With rosy lips rehearse,/ And with your polish’d arrows write my verse! -/ So shall my lines soft-rolling eyes engage/ And snow-white fingers turn the Volant page;/ The smiles of Beauty all my toils repay,/ And youths and virgins chant the living lay.’ Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802, The Temple of Nature


The Four Letters of LOVE

Only ‘L,O,V,E’ was the clue
to such boundless simplicity -

just four humble letters
to carry our highest art;

to mean the best of us - cultured
prize flower of the human heart;

budding and seeded
even in terrible dark -

for darkness fades into light
where there is love present -

for love is light -
as the letters of us

are life: also
death’s seed.