Explanations of Love

There is a place where love begins and a place

where love ends.

There is a touch of two hands that foils all dictionaries.

There is a look of eyes fierce as a big Bethlehem open hearth

furnace or a little green-fire acetylene torch.

There are single careless bywords portentous as a

big bend in the Mississippi River.

Hands, eyes, bywords–out of these love makes

battlegrounds and workshops.

There is a pair of shoes love wears and the coming

is a mystery.

There is a warning love sends and the cost of it

is never written till long afterward.

There are explanations of love in all languages

and not one found wiser than this:

There is a place where love begins and a place

where love ends—and love asks nothing.