Knowing Nothing

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Love is not the reason.

Love is the lure,

the thin goat staked out in the clearing.

The lion has stalked

the village for a long time.

It does not want the goat,

who stands thin and bleating,

tied to its bit of wood.

The goat is not the reason

The reason is the lion,

whose one desire is to enter -

Not the goat, which is

only the lure, only excuse,

but the one burning life

it has hunted for a long time

disguised as hunger.  Disguised as love.

Which is not the reason.

Or would you think

that the bones of a lion reason?

Would you think that the tongue?

The lion does not want the goat,

it wants only to live.  Alone if it must.

In pain if it must.  Knowing nothing.

Like the goat, it wants only to live.

Like love. Or would you think that the heart?

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Lives of the Heart

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