GHAZAL 100

 
Unless one takes up the matter of apprenticeship
To love, one will never kiss the winecup's gleaming lip.

This learning is how to demolish first the facade,
Then the whole structure of mind where dog-faced self keeps guard.

There is the way of dust, and that of some Golden Rule;
But mostly with love we think we don't need any school.

Of the first way we have not heard, the second is old hat—
Get out on the tiles son/daughter and learn from the cat.

Don't go to Love Street to the dilapidated shop—
Range the town for your quarry, but look out for the cop.

Of this and like things one could weep gutters of blood
If it were not that God-Man is here, and soon the thud

Of his Word in the rocks will shatter the foundations
Of mansions and hovels and establish love's generations.