To Love

“Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last! / What a task/ to ask// of anything, or anyone,// yet it is ours/ and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.” ~ Mary Oliver

Oh to love the green even before
knowing it will flower green; to love

the sere, knowing that even once before,
its body was supple as its soul— To love

what never really spoke to you except in coils
of brassy silence, itself a kind of speaking. To love,

oh to love the simple conjugations of the verb,
to love its ruses, complications and facades— To love

with hardly a hope of return, yet even so to keep
its image gleaming, garlanded with the name of love—

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.