You Have Much To Learn

by Sarah Jane Souther

All my disproportionate, extravagant longing

Blown into the wind,

Because I wish I wish I wish 

For the one I cannot have

But cannot stop loving. 

And love becomes a thing I hate,

The thing that makes a fool of me,

Promising what she does not deliver,

Like a pyramid scheme,

Like a scam,

Like she’s trying to trick me,

But is she?

My love unreturned

Cannot be love,

I think.

But a voice answers back,

Still and small.

“What,” 

Whispers the voice

“Of the God the Father

Who cared for the people wandering the wilderness? 

People who over and over again 

Defiled His holy name?

Will you say that His love,

Unremitting and unrelenting,

Dead set on redemption,

Was not love,

Simply because it was not returned?

You have much to learn of loving.”

“And think,”

Cries the voice

“Of God the Son

The One who healed multitudes,

Who calmed storms and gave bread,

Whose love was met with nails,

With thorns and scourging.

Will you say this love so determined

It drank the cup of death to save fallen man

Was not love,

Simply because it was not returned?

You have much to learn of loving”

“And do not forget,” 

Says the voice,

“God the Holy Spirit

Blowing through the weary world

So often unnoticed,

Passed by and shunned,

But speaking all the same.

Will you say this love so sure

It enters into man’s humble, ordinary days,

Is not love,

Simply because it is not returned?

You have much to learn of loving.”

“Remember every mother longing for her wayward child,

Every Father weeping over a prodigal son,

Every soldier bleeding on foreign soil,

Every nurse tending the sick and dying,

Every prophet crying to the hard of heart.

This is who I am.

Do not despise me,

Simply because 

You do not like 

The salt taste of tears.

Love is fury and fire.

Love is a cross.

It is death overcome,

Cosmic, complete

And so heavy you cannot hold it on your own. 

It is a mystery, child.”

And It is my turn now,

To become still and small and

I sit with my hands spread,

My heart flayed wide, thinking 

How I cannot answer this voice

Except with this one thing:

I have much to learn of loving.