Working At Love Poem by Jan Baeke

It's a lot of work, it tends to be too much work
love, said our advisers, was warm and full of folds.
We could picture this.

It was warm when love was opportune.
There'd been a lot of reaping and tying of sheaves. It turned out
that what fills the world and erodes it could be found nearby.
About time that we did something in return.

That we could learn how current love is? my friends asked.
That's often possible, I suggested, but we can't do that.
It's a personal love, with its own tunnel.

God, when he's on duty, prefers to stand here, near this tunnel
having a smoke and happy he's not in his office.
With his large, lanky body he's always self-conscious
afraid he'll attract attention, worried that people might think
he's afraid of attracting attention.

It's work that keeps recurring, he says, and my friends
are impressed because it's God who's saying this
and because, in the photograph, he's the only one in focus.

Translation: 2015, Judith Wilkinson