Write me as one that Loves All my fellow humans:²
The capacity for Love, in its first youth, embraces
Not only both sexes, but all and everything, sensuous
And spiritual—it endows all things with a Spell of Love
And fairy-like ease of Transformation such as comes again
Only to a chosen few, and to Poets—and to them rarely.³
We shall love more persons, places, and things with
Deeper and more Diverse feelings than we know now.⁴
The more Souls who resonate together, the greater the intensity
Of their love, and, Mirror-like—each soul reflects the other.⁵
What is Love? To feel the presence of the One Life
Deep within yourself and within all creatures.⁶
Although Love prefers to dwell in gay palaces
And voluptuous bedchambers more that poor huts,
For all that, it at times makes its Powers felt in dense
Forests, on rugged mountains, and in desert caves,
From which you’re able to see that
Everything is subject to its Power.⁷
What if the Mightiest word is Love?
Love beyond marital, filial, & national bounds—
Love that casts a widening pool of Light—⁸
In some not too distant future, the radiant
Stars of Love & Brotherhood—will shine over
Our great nation with all their scintillating Beauty!⁹
I Love all and all Love me—
And that is the Secret.¹⁰
¹ Jimi Hendrix, Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)
² Leigh Hunt, Abou Ben Adhem
³ Hermann Hesse tr. Basil Creighton, Steppenwolf
⁴ Philip Whalen, Minor Moralia
⁵ Dante Alighieri tr. Stephen Mitchell, Paradiso
⁶ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
⁷ Giovanni Boccaccio tr. Wayne Rebhorn, The Decameron
⁸ Elizabeth Alexander, Praise Song for the Day
⁹ Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail
¹⁰ Ursula K. Le Guin, Coming of Age in Karhide