from To Love Is
Alicia Ostriker

iii.
To love is
To desire the liberty
Of the one loved

And if I have desired
From my first moments of sentience
When I recognized that I ardently loved the world

The balanced radiance of its good and evil
And wanted to help
Unlock it to become

More and more itself
More and more alive
–What then?

As I grow older the evil seems
Uglier
Denser, more strangely skewed

And myself weaker.
Still I have my original loyalty
My memory

I have my task
What matter if I can
Never accomplish it.