Villa d'Este Fountain in Tivoli

All for Love

All this love
is too much.
It overflows
like Villa d’Este fountains
or baptismal fonts
of running water
brimming over the edge.

All this love
wants to go somewhere. 
It cannot stay put
like a knick knack
on a shelf
to be admired.
No!

All this love
longs to be given
to bless
to heal
to transform.
It eagerly nudges
toward lovemaking. 


All this love
wants to permeate,
penetrate,
bring to attention
the softness
of souls open
to receive.

All this love
flows through me
for you,
though it is not mine
to possess
and gift as object.
No.

All this love
is a river,
the river of Life,
we step into
that flows for all,
transforming landscapes 
as grace upon grace.

All this love 
is only mine as vessel
to pour out
and lavish
upon you
as minister
of God.

All this love
is yours
for the receiving
and taking and sharing
like bread
at communion,
the cup of trembling.


All this love
longs
to be taken in
and filled as emptied,
to participate
in that which calls
and creates it--


divine, babbling rhapsody,
effusive as kenotic waterfall,
singing us into existence,
exulting over us with song,
desiring confluence  
in love, for love, with love,
for us and our salvation. 


                     ©2013, Tess Lockhart.  All rights reserved.