Some poets and writers, whom I despise, can’t cope with the fact that even the love we might think of as ‘everlasting’ fades into memory. Their idea of romantic love meant that it had to last forever, or else be ended by death. I think that some of them were actually motivated by a kind of jealousy, and wanted death to come as a punishment for those who dared to be really lovers. This can be seen in poems, novels, and films. Some have theorised that those who held these views were in fact homosexuals who couldn’t stand the idea of a man and a woman loving each other – hard to believe!
Love lasts for ever, but only in our memories. Lovers always part, whether by the ending of affection, finding another partner, dementia, or even death, but there is always a memory of it somewhere. This is not some kind of sad tragedy; like a beautiful flower that must fade and decay this is a natural process, since only an artificial flower never loses its petals or its scent. Natural endings were found unacceptable by some romantic writers, who wanted a sudden end while in full bloom, not a slow fading away in which even outstanding beauty and romance came to a natural end.
A sunset is beautiful partly because we know that it is ephemeral, transient. There may be another beautiful one tomorrow, but today’s will be gone, except in our memories. Love, similarly, flowers, blooms, and goes to seed as patrt of the natural cycle of life. Without this cycle there would be no love.
Love and death
He used the word ‘love’ a lot, as its importance justifies,
He wrestled with the concept and the act all through his life
And often tried to see it through a woman’s eyes
But until he was quite old it remained a mystery.
At last he realised that its transient nature, like a sunset,
couldn’t last all day; its value lay in memory of how it was,
not in chagrin that it always slipped his grasp, to his regret,
and that the love that does not change or be renewed is dead.
This insight had to contravene the poets of romance
who spoke of ‘everlasting love’, but found they needed death
to make it last rather than fade like every lovely flower
so rather than let it go to seed they choked its fragrant breath.
All of his lovers left him, to get on with their careers,
as was their right and destiny. They gave him love,
but what he gave they rightly didn’t value much at all -
his sexuality could not outlast their youthful years.
© Malcolm Miller 7.1.2013
