After Being in Love, the Next Responsibility
After Being in Love, the Next Responsibility - meaning Summary
Love as Cosmic Responsibility
The poem presents love as a cosmic force that animates all things. Using images of water, animals, mountains, sun and ocean, the speaker argues that love gives movement, brightness, and purpose. Humans are urged to embrace love actively and responsibly so they may know the Beloved and the deeper knowledge that comes from devotion. Other parts of the world already enact love; humans alone can accept love’s next responsibility knowingly and faithfully.
Read Complete AnalysesTurn me like a waterwheel turning a millstone. Plenty of water, a Living River. Keep me in one place and scatter the love. Leaf-moves in wind, straw drawn toward amber, all parts of the world are in love, but they do not tell their secrets. Cows grazing on a sacramental table, ants whispering in Solomon’s ear. Mountains mumbling an echo. Sky, calm. If the sun were not in love, he would have no brightness, the side of the hill no grass on it. The ocean would come to rest somewhere. Be a lover as they are, that you come to know you Beloved. Be faithful that you may know Faith. The other parts of the universe did not accept the next responsibility of love as you can. They were afraid they might make a mistake with it, the inspired knowing that springs from being in love
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