Do You Love?

Do you love?
Not with the glands.
Not from some needs list
With gaps showing.
Not to silence
Echoes of loneliness.
Not in the panic
To parent.
Not to conform.
Not for that patient
Listening ear,
Willing to hear
Yours and yours alone.
But do you love?
Forget eros,
Filios, storge.
Show yourself
Giver, forgiver,
Door mat and servant.
Charitable at each
New development.
Putting on the best spin
For mercy’s sake.
This is the agape.
Not yours
But Heaven’s alone.
(Leased to the least.)



Note: With thanks to C. S. Lewis in The Four Loves