Infinite Love By: F.A. Sadeghpour, Massachusetts, U.S.A. (This poem was first published in the summer 2001 issue of Persian Heritage) Oh Love! Love! Love! Long ago, when I was young and callow, You gloriously appeared with roar, flash and glow. I shut my eyes tight, covered my ears, Vastly engulfed by tumult and fears. Would not bear Your true songs, deemed to sear The carefree hearts of young ones with cheers! Are You not the lust and passion a youth knows? The one who dispels throbs and throes awhile, then goes? The one who earlier avowed, later goes with no friend? The one who yesterday was endowed, today seems at its end? The one who already was fair, nowadays fetters to wear? What previously was play, now no one would care? Oh Love! Love! Love! Awhile later, in Your majesty visited me again, Though still incognizant, I questioned You in vain; To me unbeknownst, while being unimpressed You'd been dwelling in my breast Far prior to my birth, youth, or being Wholly without my knowledge or seeing! You've been an inate entity since eternity, Infinitely man's heartbeat and soul-his moiety. Oh You beacon of compassion, mercy and sanity, Shine, shine forth, brighten the Hope of humanity. Oh precious Love, how befitting living a life twice At Your altar, one to apprentice, the other to practice! (end)