A Toast to Love in Spite of History
A Poem
The last time a tear welled behind your eye, it fell from another world; another love you wept for as I praised our freedom, and now I toast our love, and you weep again. Am I to search for another world? To ask of Mars and Aphrodite— like the fool Hephaestus so embarrassed? Am I to find again that you are Venus in another man’s world? That the contraction of those loves, not joy, opens the tear-doors of your eyes? Or do you weep for our love? The spring of sensuality streaming from the eyes and the Eye of God, our beautiful rose, folding and unfolding with the heat in our home? Has a veil fallen between our eyes? Is your heart shrouded in the black cloak of betrayal, or is it only the reflection of my own dark robe? There is so much we cannot know. Yet, the teardrop opens a path, falls down the cheek toward the heart, gives moistness to a brittle soul. One can get lost in so many questions. It takes courage to love. If I find a two-faced Janus standing at the temple door, shall I salute and recognize he lives in all of us? Or shall I deny Janus and prefer the pure oneness of everything? Or, better yet, shall I recognize all truth, hold it dear, and love you anyway? Yes, I think that one. Fill my glass with the wine of love: “To love in spite of history!” We each raise our glass, the glasses go empty, we look into each other’s eyes, Mars and Venus and Janus look away—the eyes tell all. And now, the whole world… weeping. -Anthony Signorelli
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