Grieving for a List of Qualities

Grieving for a List of Qualities

Eun Ji, why does love do harmful things
To us who mope in sweet humility?
Are we not the most harmless people
Love is a fire, sword, has it done you awful harm?

No! Only words, only words of lost love
The treasures that were too shabby anyhow
And pain, like well-known eyes of attachment
Taken, or lips, a name of a dear baby

The idea of who we were with such and such a person
The months that seemed to hover in ecstasy
But Ah to give ourselves over to a greater power
Or let nature do with us what she may

Such are the traps and doves and gold
Of the inner life, and the sharing pacts
We make with other souls, even if temporary
All to craft our heart in more particular a form

How much we give and for whom, perhaps
It’s all a selfish play in the end, we are always
One step away from beauty, one step
In love not with the person but the idea of a person.