The beginning
Why do we smile
That first smile
What do we say
After
That first word has been said
Why do we look again
After that first look
Has seen
What the first look saw
Does the origin of love
Lie in the nature
Of second things

Second things

Winter
Does winter only start
After the first snowfall
Has melted away
On a ground to warm
To hold in its embrace
The beautiful white crystals
The watery gifts
From the sky’s cooling breath
Is that then winter true

Summer
Is summer only here
Not when the soil
Begins to warm
But when
The first tiny green shoots
Awakened by the energies
Received
From the straight rays
Of a repositioned sun
Push themselves free
From the soil of the land
To dance in the rhythms
Of the near earth breezes
Is that then summertime

Love begins
When will love begin
When the shock
Of the first felt passion
Abates or declines
To the level of passion
Felt for others
Who are the inciters
Only of passions
Less disturbing
Less distressing
Less demanding
Than passions in full flight
Then perhaps
The opportunity arises
For love to enter the field
The field that has widened
To allow a mind
To sense more than
A body
To now sense
The nature of
Another mind
To observe the behaviours
Derived from
The mental machinations
Of a mind
Formed from
The forces of a physiology
Written by
The mathematics of processes
Driving the chemistry
Trapped in
Or extracted from
The DNA libraries
Within our cells
Those mental machinations
Shaped too
By social structures
The meaning maps
Of our culture

Love attained
When the mind
Has felt the flood
Of the passions
Quieten into
A more gentle ebb and flow
And experienced
Then
In the stillness of a mind
Less forced
Into the urgent shapes
That are derived from
The surface tension
Of another’s body
There may
The mental judgments
Be given time
To consolidate
An understanding of
The whole person
There may love
Find a place
To be itself
To be what love is
More an action
Than a feeling
Love
Thus made real
Not in protestations
Not in professions
But by every behaviour
Whatever it’s intent
Being made rich
With the flow
Of love
Filling the atmosphere
Of the day-to-day
Moments
Of life
Love at its least
Is a feeling
But love in truth
Is a state of being
Found
Not by falling into it
But by
Becoming it