"Aimless Love," by Billy Collins

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor's window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door —
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor —
just a twinge every now and then

for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

+ Billy Collins

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Collins’ meditation on love is a welcome tonic, opening up the word to mean not only romance, but also a playful appreciation that’s “aimless” both in the sense that it can include just about anything, and in the sense that it has no “aim” or “purpose” other than itself, a love for love’s sake, a love “without recompense, without gifts.”

A love more like God’s love: agape, the ancient Greeks called it, a love without conditions, without quid pro quo. And at the same time, a love that’s less solemn-and-serious and more light-and-lyrical. A love that exuberantly takes it all in. A love that circulates, falling through and for the world, from the lakeshore to the bar of soap — and so puts a new, whimsical spin on that ancient, beautiful idea: “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love“ (1 John 4:8).