And What Is This

Right away I saw the power of it, knowing that the loan I made would never be repaid; that made me smile— that secret, quite delicious irony was mine to keep within my heart. My sacrifice had just become a gift of love I didn't even understand. No loving person would return remembering, or able to requite; she acted out of need alone, a pure divestment of her pride, and out of need I gave— not from a love inside, nor from a hope of heaven, that pain embraced. It simply was replaced by mirth. There is a spring within the desert's bleak array that flows with power to beautify that mendicant from whom I readily recoil, and how I thirst! Love is a sorcerer, a charmer quite devoid of intellect. Emotions may be far away, the strings within a heart untuned and every day the wind blows cold across the stony ground— yet still I smile, a lesser man complete, beguiled that such a thing as love has twisted sensibility, and from a tiny throne far off in space has brought about a new and wondrous world. ~