“Love is never illicit!”

A midnight assertion 

took me to many yesterdays

the loving turning and re-turning of pages

the rolling of words on a mind-tip 

and an evening of finality,

that moment   

when Seeress asked and the Master replied

and where at the exhaustion of query

even after blessedness was acknowledged 

two questions had arrived and in arrival were answered:

“Was it I who spoke?  Was I not also a listener?”

I re-read the prophetic prescription

the nutshell version 

of the book “All about love”

and, in the manner of our days,

pressed ‘ctrl F’;

I called for “illicit”

and then 

in seerish presumption

from that unyielding text requested,

“And what of the licit, Master?”

There arose 

from the flame-tip

of an oil lamp

lit in a long forgotten temple 

the softest silence

and which, bathed 

in timeless luminosity 

decreed: 

‘transliterate!”

And so in crippled tongue

this I am compelled to say:

It is no sin 

to name the undefined 

but we desist

on account of vulgarity;

the beloved is nameless

and therefore variously named;

the question of propriety

is a verse on moonlight

so why write about luminosity 

when to let it clothe 

is verse enough? 

Oh! Beloved!

I’ve digressed

so let me 

to the country of love

return.