Ten Little Love Poems

“Love’s flames are flames of fire,

flames that come from the Lord.”

—Song of Solomon 8:6c (NRSV)

Such a power as this humankind can’t conceive,

Love’s from God—let no one deceive,

This prospect of love is fiery ‘n’ enigmatic,

The Lord’s Creative Act, nothing sporadic.

***

Love’s the language of our romance,

Love’s the elixir, so get up and dance,

Such a thing is glorious to see,

Love’s a thing generating glee.

***

Love is a problem, we can only suppose,

When it calls us to consider thought of our foes,

That’s when love becomes a lament,

Times when we feel justifiably spent.

***

Infatuation comprises the immature love,

Of love unrequited—a love called “shove,”

This is the love that gets in the way,

Love like this is where we just want to stay.

***

Passionate love is all aflame,

Conspicuous and driven for passion’s gain,

Energised love carries us through,

To love’s defining moment—this ardour is true.

***

Most desperate of all is the love that’s bare,

Love like this is harrowingly unfair,

No prospect of love can we envision here,

Love like this we cannot hold dear.

***

The greatest love of all is that from the Father,

To send his Son to the cross—we would not rather,

That cost of grace could never have been cheap,

That redemption of grace and look at us now that reap.

***

Love takes us on journeys resplendently real,

As if with love we’ve got a heavenly deal,

Love is kindness, courage and might,

And love most of all is the thing that is right.

***

Love is care—tidy and just,

Something in creation that never becomes dust,

Love is enduring, eternal and creative,

Energies of love are from God, native.

***

Love is intimacy—where we are close,

We love it when love delivers its dose,

Trust and respect are the deliverables at hand,

These are something upon which love can stand.

***

There are so many ways of describing love, but typically we narrow its definition.

Love is from God, of course. Such a love created all we know and see, feel, and hear. Nothing would be if not for love.

Love is eternal, from beginning to end, as if eternity has a beginning and an end. Love is enduring even though our use of love often fails because of sin. We fail it. Love does not fail us. Love is the idea of relational perfection. She is an ideal. But love, however hard it is to achieve sustainability, can be achieved.

The agency to love is obedience to God.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.