Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills—
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn’t always understand.
-Czeslaw Milosz
note: A poem by Czeslaw Milosz quoted by Parker J. Palmer in his book On the Brink of Everything, the book I’m currently reading.
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