QUOTE : The Great Fires<br /><br />Love is apart from all things.<br />Desire and excitement are nothing beside it.<br />It is not the body that finds love.<br />What leads us there is the body.<br />What is not love provokes it.<br />What is not love quenches it.<br />Love lays hold of everything we know.<br />The passions which are called love<br />also change everything to a newness<br />at first. Passion is clearly the path<br />but does not bring us to love.<br />It opens the castle of our spirit<br />so that we might find the love which is<br />a mystery hidden there.<br />Love is one of many great fires.<br />Passion is a fire made of many woods,<br />each of which gives off its special odor<br />so we can know the many kinds<br />that are not love. Passion is the paper<br />and twigs that kindle the flames<br />but cannot sustain them. Desire perishes<br />because it tries to be love.<br />Love is eaten away by appetite.<br />Love does not last, but it is different<br />from the passions that do not last.<br />Love lasts by not lasting.<br />Isaiah said each man walks in his own fire<br />for his sins. Love allows us to walk<br />in the sweet music of our particular heart.<br /><br />Jack Gilbert, <i>The Great Fires</i>. (Knopf; unknown edition February 13, 1996) Originally published February 13th 1994.