What We Don't Know
To make a study of love
is to grow comfortable with
the limits of one's self,
which is to say, to follow
the arc of all learning.
In mathematics, we move
from one plus one is two,
through cruel subtraction
and division, eventually
to a calculus whose formula
fills rooms, and whose
solution eludes, even breaks
minds, sending us back
toward our accepted truths.
And in language, the same,
we grow from what we can
name- nouns and verbs- Go,
Dog, Go- See Jane- to more
descriptive, emotive words.
We add our negatives, our
plurals and possessives, our
many synonyms for touch
until we are lost in poetry
and compound-complex
sentences, and at a loss,
we learn silence and pause.
And just as musicians must
progress through repetition
from the plinking, tapping
at middle C and the squeak,
the missteps of flute and
violin, we move through
muscle memory toward
chords, both major and
minor, toward duet and
round, toward quartet and
the dream of symphonies,
most of us in awe, helpless
in the face of it, happy to
have mastered only a fraction.
We learn to feel love like
we learn to feel history. We
begin by accepting the lessons
we are given- Washington
and the cherry tree, manifest
destiny- until we see we've
been suckers for a story,
until we learn to separate
the facts and the truth, and
the lies we tell ourselves and
we fall in with philosophy
who wants us to know nothing.
Or we approach our love
like a scientist. At first, only
through our mouths and hands,
tasting dirt, squashing bugs,
until we learn dissection and
protocol, testing and retesting,
drifting further into theory,
away from the familiar and
known until all that is left is
to wonder, to stand at the edge
of our ignorance and smile.
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