I do not know how one heart
Can grow so great
As to love A and B and C,
Unless it be that balanced
Upon the steady fulcrum of an M
An alphabet of loving sits so evenly
That all the letters have a place and part.
I name none,
But A is such a spirit
That all of lost mankind
Can find a mother there,
And healing strength
And wisdom from
The spirit of humanity -
Of those who lived at other times
In other places far away -
And words to comfort every troubled soul.
Then B has such a heart
That she would take into her care
Every soul now lost
And find them comfort there.
Blessed beyond all grace
Is any heart that B enfolds in hers -
For it must grow so great
With love's great joy
That all the world
Is compassed in one breast.
If C had not the fortitude
Of patient, quiet endurance,
Too many people
Would be deprived of love
And borrowed strength;
Too many lives
Would slip into the dark
And never know the comfort
Of the spark that lives in one
But lights so many faces.
None could possibly see that light
So courageously held up
Without loving its brave source.
Of other letters I could name an E,
Now lost among the passing crowds
Of passing youth;
An F long departed far from here;
A G that loved and lost
Yet still has strength to go on loving.
An H that loves us all
And swears it true
Every time the wine has done its work
And I who loves the thought of love itself,
And for that thought is loved by many here.
A J that made a long long leap
Of faith and landed
In the arms of love safe and secure;
An S who rides an engine
Powered by love
Even if it crashes now and then;
And Y and V
And other As and Bs and Cs
Even a Z
And all the other letters in between.
For love is such a stuff it seems to me
That it like to the primal atom
Exploding when the Universe began.
A little, such a very little, starting first
And then, in hyperinflationary pushes,
Faster even than the speed of light
Filling all the vasty cosmos
Of our skies.
I walk today along my city streets
And watch with joy, around me
This Brave New World
Of faces smiling, joyful, loving;
Filling me with love
For all this family of Man
Till, though it seems my heart
Has expanded all it can,
I hear of one more birth
And find there is yet room
For another child inside.
| 
