Longing

Sometimes I long with deeper desire than I want to bear
For a love that satisfies not the desire for pleasure,
Though this too is good–
But a love that opens doors.
A love that welcomes the stranger in you,
The raw, vulnerable, unedited you
Is the one I want to love, the one I want to be. 

Remember that conversation last spring?
As one by one the last attendees shuffled out,
Until you were the only ones still seated on the pews.
“No, no,” he said, “I want to know what it is that you think.”
He was always opening these doors, welcoming me in.

Remember also the way you prepared a space for him,
The penetrating words you risked, the silence you kept.
Sometimes words, sometimes silence,
But always a mining for substance, his and mine,
Always a willingness to open doors
To the messy, unkempt life that lies always within the heart.
Come in, come in.