How to Write About Poetry

When the best, most respected members of the community approach death without violence or agonizing pain and look forward to a peaceful afterlife, they actually accept death and even want it to come more quickly. Some of their friends keeping vigil believe they recognize the last breath because they, too, want the dying person to enter Heaven. However, other friends protest because they do not want to lose the relationship with the person whom they have respected for so long. In a similar way, you and I should accept our parting at this moment peacefully without a dramatic and grief-filled scene. To reveal to the public at large just how deeply we love one another would cheapen our intensely personal relationship.

Earthquakes damage property and terrify people. Afterwards, people estimate the total cost of the damage, and they attempt to find meaning in the calamity. Yet, when the nine crystal spheres that hold the planets and the stars rub against one another and vibrate to produce the celestial music of the spheres, no one takes note or expresses fear – despite the fact that the movement of the spheres is far greater than that of the earth during an earthquake.

Common, everyday lovers love because they see and touch one another. They cannot tolerate any parting from one another because closeness to one another is the only reason for their love to begin with. However, our love is far more spiritual and pure, so much so that even you and I cannot adequately explain or express it. We are simply made confident in our love by our fidelity to one another: our love resides within our souls, not our bodies. Therefore, we do not rely on looking into one another’s eyes, holding one another’s hands, or kissing.

We share one soul between us. Consequently, when I go away on a diplomatic mission, our love does not suffer any kind of break. Instead, our love expands to cover the distance just as the most precious gold can be beaten into the thinnest foil and cover many times the area of the original lump.

Still, if we do have two souls, then they are two in the same way that the two legs of a compass make up two parts of a single instrument. You are like the leg of the compass the foot of which marks the center of a circle. That leg does not leave its place but rotates as the other leg moves. As your heart yearns toward mine when I am gone, that leg leans toward the leg that moves. When the circle is drawn, the other leg is brought together with its mate until the two are side by side once more.

While I am gone, you will think of me, and your thoughts will reach out toward me. I, on the other hand, will remain connected to you even though – like the leg that actually draws the circle – I am parted from you. Your faithfulness guarantees my own while I am gone. In the end, our love brings me home as though we had never been parted.

[Note that the circle drawn by the compass suggests the circular form of a wedding ring, a symbol of John and Anne’s love for one another.]