Covenant with Love

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

World AIDS day may be on Dec 1st, but the HIV-AIDS virus is among us all the time and those affected need our love and support every day.

Now, this villanelle has not appeared on the blogs since 2010 and a number of readers have asked me to repeat it during the past six months or so.  I am happy to oblige, not least because I am one of the lucky ones. I don't have the virus if only there but for good fortune...and common sense; I always used a condom in the days when I was  sexually active, and was tested regularly.

Since being tested positive for prostate cancer in 2011, mind and spirit remain active, but my body doesn't want to know any more. No worries there, though, as I enjoy falling back on memories and  letting a poet's imagination, its wonders to perform...

COVENANT WITH LOVE 

Though saddened hearts would break

and HIV-AIDS a rising toll,

love, with loss, its peace shall make

See ripples spread for humanity's sake

come sun, moon, heart and soul

though saddened hearts would break

Where disease, fate, or age lives take,

anger, grief, like burning coal,

love, with loss, its peace shall make

See a light from dark, its prison break,

let better times roll…

though saddened hearts would break

Though we live for living’s own sake,

no matter affairs of the soul,

love, with loss, its peace shall make

Let the world’s worst its own forsake

and healing be our goal;

though saddened hearts would break,

love, with loss, its peace shall make

Copyright R . N. Taber 2007

[Note: This poem has been revised since first appearing in Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007.]