Chelan Harkin: There Is a Kind of Love

Photo by Molly

There Is a Kind of Love

There is a kind of love

Rare and precious

That creates a revolution

In your deep being.

You can no longer bear

The prisons you’ve put yourself in.

You can no longer bear

Your old commitments

To the titration

Of the great love

In your heart.

In some rare and beautiful cases

This living love, like a wild rose,

Is discovered

That makes you unable

To manage yourself so.

A beauty is discovered

Whose fragrance impels you

To dismantle old worlds.

And there is no greater gift

Than a love like this

And nothing more

Confrontational

Than something that asks you

To consecutively lay down

Every precious thing

You’ve invested in

That would wound you

Or another.

This is the love of sacrifice

Of making sacred

The space of the heart

By throwing more

And more strategies

Of separation

Into love’s fire.

— Chelan Harkin

https://chelanharkin.com/selected-poems/