What is Love? "The Nearness That Is All"

A man in my Grief Support Group brought in copies of a poem by Samuel Hazo titled "The Nearness that is All". He said he had gotten it from the NPR website. I did a Google search and it looks like Garrison Keillor has mounted it in his Writer's Almanac, with permission, at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2007/11/19/ ... scroll down to Saturday 11/24.

I read this poem and couldn't stop thinking about it, choking, crying ... excerpts:

"Love is the man who siphoned phlegm from his ill wife's throat three times a day for seven years ..."

Oh Momma it was sheer privilege ... every time I wiped you where you wiped me as a babe; every time I cleaned you, every time I gave you a back rubby down, every time I gave you a foot rubby down, every time I touched you, every time you touched me ... Oh Momma that was sheerest sheerest privilege ...

"[Love's] why a mother whispers to her suckling, 'may you bury me.' "

Oh Momma this then was also my privilege, to carry out your unspoken heart's desire for I think this truly was your desire ...

"Love leaves no one alone but, oh, lonely, lonelier, loneliest at midnight in another country."

Oh lonely lonely lonely now ... it is now midnight in another country ... every moment in this country is midnight in another country, here in Babylon, far far from Jerusalem, here, where we are all aliens and exiles ...

"Love's how death creates a different nearness but kills nothing."

Oh Momma ... a different nearness ... this is perhaps still to be mine ... I can only hope and pray for this nearness that now feels so very very much like a farness too too far away ...

"Love saddens glad dayts for no bad reason.
Love gladdens sad days for no good reason.
Love mocks equivalence.
Love is."

Oh Momma yes this is love ... what else what else indeed ... this is Agape love of which St Paul wrote to the Corinthians our brothers and sisters now past ...

Oh Momma oh Momma oh Momma how I miss you .... oh oh oh oh oh ....

Oh Jesus my Jesus please ...

Please please please please please ...

Take good care of my dear dear Momma ...

I love you Momma so ...

I love you Jesus so ...

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Andrew