Thanks Steve for another interesting exploration here. I wonder about this term 'mess'. Is it possible perhaps that love appears chaotic, as we humans have little way other than to fall, and to fail under its principal. And that death is the foremost teacher in this field?
Thanks Steve for another interesting exploration here. I wonder about this term 'mess'. Is it possible perhaps that love appears chaotic, as we humans have little way other than to fall, and to fail under its principal. And that death is the foremost teacher in this field?
HI Peter, I always love your responses. I like the word 'mess' in this context because it was Greg's (lived and poetic) experience. This is the poem from his pamphlet https://www.poetrybooks.co.uk/products/love-makes-a-mess-of-dying-by-greg-gilbert and other extracts here: https://andotherpoems.com/2018/04/06/a-sequence-by-greg-gilbert/
Mortality A.D. (After Diagnosis)
Love makes a mess of dying,
Requires a division of healing
Between what you can afford yourself
And what you can afford others;/
It holds you the centre of
A tolerant universe; such
A simple thing for one, now splintered
Into prismatic, unruly consequence./
Love makes a mess of dying,
Rarefies what you’ve got left and
Draws close those for whom you’ve
Been essential architecture, each seeking
A totem./
Whatever tricks I tell myself to deaden before dying –
That I’m alone, that alone is the essential state – comes
Undone at the sight of love and I’m afraid, not of dying,
But of leaving a mess for love./