The Guide

It is an inhuman, almost impossible, task to love that which is not immediately before us. Fortunately, we are given intermediate, imperfect creations, so that they may guide us to a love which has, as its object, the most perfect lover of all.


The Guide

What are the things we know?
The wind-bedraggled leaves;
the apples as they grow;
the water off the eaves;

a miniscule sphere
to complement the mind.
Whatever else is here,
whatever else we find,

is only but a shade
of silhouettes unseen,
and ever we invade,
and ever fall between

the outset and the end.
The only fecund guide
is fathomed in a friend,
a lover, and a bride,

in charity to wed
the mortal and divine,
to stitch a constant thread
in visible design,

that weaker hearts may sew
the happiness they yearn,
impossible to know,
but possible to learn.