What is it to love ?

The poet asks
           what is it to love
what is it that moves
           two people
to take one another
           as their own
to have and to hold
           to exclude all others ?

that love
           clear and bright
seen in the intersection
           of their eyes
and in the shared pattern
           of their movements
in the harmonies
           of their breath
in all their geometries
           and in the rhythms
and the intricate narrative
           of their dance

What beauty arises
           from their unmuted concentricity
from the steadfast enactment
           of their most intimate dreams
As circles of darkness
           are kept at bay
by circles of light
           so their souls shine
in the singularity
           of their conjoined flesh
: time is the dust
           that love outlives

John Lyons