I Know

Nowadays, conjugal love is equated with sex. The undeniable bond between the body and the soul, a bond which once subjugated the lesser to greater, has faded, firstly, into the correspondence of equals, and then into a revolt of our animal half, which has left the soul derided, and even ignored, as the useless trappings of an unfortunate puritanical history. And so, love is now affixed to feeling, urge, hunger, lust, et cetera, but never, ever can it be called knowledge. This was the way in which the Old Testament spoke of conjugal love, and the truth of this is paramount. If love is simply a feeling, then it is as weak as the hormones and chemical reactions that produce that feeling, for feelings are, in the end, rooted in the body, however amorphous and incorporeal they may seem. Love that knows the beloved, however, is immeasurably stronger and immeasurably more meaningful. And where is this knowledge? Why, in the intellect, of course. Any meaningful love - any real love - cannot reside in the emotions, but in the reason. The difference is this: when love is based in a bodily feeling, you love the object of that feeling, which is physical and psychological pleasure. On the other hand, when love is based in knowledge, you love the object of that knowledge, which is the beloved. Then unless you can first love with reason, you will never truly love with feeling.


I Know

If loving were a longing, barely held
within the flighty confines of the heart,
that joy would as quickly be expelled
as nurtured by our fluctuating art,

for sentiments are fickle as the wind
that daily alters over land and sea,
and such a love would surely be unpinned
by every altercation of degree.

But love that undergirds the heavy weight
of centuries in melody and verse
is ever more than orotund estate,
unfitly nurtured by a feeble nurse.

The truest love to occupy the soul
is knowledge of the deficit and whole.