We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through a marriage into a marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
...
Love is not enough. We die and are put in the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wilderness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within that body.

Love is apart from all things.
Desire and excitement are nothing beside it.
It is not the body that finds love.
What leads us there is the body.
What is not love provokes it.
What is not love quenches it.
Love lays hold of everything we know.
The passions which are called love
also change everything to a newness
at first. Passion is clearly the path
but it does not bring us to love.
It opens the castle of our spirit
so that we might find the love which is
a mystery hidden there.

Love is one of many great fires.
Passion is a fire made of many woods,
each of which give off its special odor
so we can know the many kinds
that are not love. Passion is the paper
and the twigs that kindle the flames
but cannot sustain them. Desire perishes
because it tries to be love.
Love is eaten away by appetite.
Love does not last, but it is different
from the passions that do not last.
Love lasts by not lasting.
Isiah said each man walks in his own fire
for his sins. Love allows us to walk
in the sweet music of our particular heart.