What are these wings rustling about my couch in the silence of the night as I watch wakeful for what I know not, listening to what I do not hear, staring at what I do not see, pondering what I do not comprehend, aware of what I do not apprehend, sighing because in sighs are the groanings more beloved to me than the echoes of laughter and joy, submitting to an unseen power that slays me, then give me life, then slays me again and again until dawn breaks and light fills the corners of my room. Then I sleep. Yet behind my spent eyelids forms of wakefulness dance and on my stoney blanket sway the phantoms of dreams.

What is this which we call “love”?

Tell me what is this hidden mystery concealed beyond the ages, lurking behind appearances, yet making its home in the heart of being?

What is this unconditioned thought that comes as the cause of all effects, as the effect of all causes?

What is this wakefulness that encompasses both death and life and molds them into a dream stranger than life and deeper than death?

Tell me, O people, tell me! Who among you would not wake from the sleep of life if love were to brush your spirit with its fingertips?

Who among you would not forsake your father and your mother and your home if the girl whom your heart loved were to call to him?

Who among you would not cross the seas, traverse deserts, go over mountains and valleys to reach the woman whom his spirit has chosen?

What youth would not follow his heart to the ends of the earth to breath the sweetness of his lover’s breath, feel the soft touch of her hands, delight in the melody of her voice?

What man would not immolate his soul that its smoke might rise to a god who would hear his plea and answer his prayer?

Yesterday I stood by the gate of the temple and asked passersby about the mysteries and virtues of love.

A man of middle years passed by, his body wasted, his face dark. Sighing, he said, “Love has made weak the strength I inherited from the First Man.”

A youth, his body strong and brawny, passed by. In a voice of song he said, “Love is resolution added to my being, linking my present to generations past and future.”

A woman, her eyes melancholy, passed by and, sighing, said, “Love is a deadly poison, the breath of black adders writhing in Hell, flowing and swirling through the sky until it falls covered in dew, only to be lapped up by thirsty spirits. Then they are drunk for a moment, sober for a year, dead for eternity.”