Love Does not Forget,
Shimmering Inside from
Everlasting to Everlasting
“Paul Cartledge reminds us that ‘the ancient Greek word for “truth” meant literally “not forgetting”.’” Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 22
A truth cannot be lost while we still live
No more than God forgets the cross, or Christ
Outside the tomb. Christ rises to forgive.
There in those moments sin is cleanly sliced
Away forever. Since all sins are fraud,
They disappear into the inverse of
Eternity. Since truth is far too broad
To make exemptions in the width of love,
The unforgiven sins must vanish too
Like black holes that collide. Since love goes far
Past memory, love is truer than the true
That ancient Greeks remembered. Like a star
That never had beginning and can not
End. God will never say the word, “Forgot.”
Do not forget that love is love.
Remember that novae-like truth. Love lives
Forever, lived before the rest, above
All merest things, and, loving, it forgives:
The one great truth that most forget. They lose
Their vision of the star-like crux, the fact
Of perfect charity. This loss brings bruise
And scar behind the eyeballs. God’s great act
Alone can make the blind to see, the lame
To leap, the leper to have flesh as sweet
As fruit on Eden’s trees before the blame
Forgetting caused. The fruit that we should eat
Is perfect and eternal. If you bite
It, it will shimmer where there is no night.