We Wait For Love Poem by Patti Masterman

We wait for love in thirsty dust, in dry heaving death,
We wait for love to sprout flypaper wings from nothingness,
To rise visible above fallow fields of dirt and cadavers.
We would promise that just over the horizon
There is a paradise, and fruit groves;
Seasons of plenty, and august grapes on the vine.
We write odes to love, and last testaments,
We dedicate our firstborn and will our last breath,
Plead with hands on hearts
Eyes raised toward heaven,
We pledge ourselves and we drink a toast
That all things touched by love should rightly prosper.

Love is more taciturn and complex,
Love's desires are opaque and discreet:
Wanting what it wants and what it doesn't,
And wanting it when, where, and for it's own undeclared purposes,
In its own good time or this moment or never;
Not wanting its name on fruit baskets or vineyards,
Not wanting to propagate itself,
Not liking wanton displays of bribery-
Choosing a few only, and letting the rest go to rot.

We reconcile ourselves to it by imagining
Love as an esoteric business; that no man
Could ever understand it's ends;
We don't want to admit even to ourselves that it's all governed
By chance or proximity; or by the amount of gold
Gleaming on somebody else's wineglasses.