A close friend asked me recently “What do poets say about love in friendships?” After wracking my brain, I had to concede that as far as I know, they don’t say a lot. Poetry lionizes romantic love. Romantic love goes up there somewhere on a pedestal next to Truth, Justice and Mercy, to be venerated like some elaborate goddess – a new Venus for us to worship. But on the love that exists within friendships, the poets seem to be mysteriously silent.
Even Shakespeare, pretty much my go-to guy for emotional feels, has little to say on the subject. The closest he seems to come is with Sonnet XX, and even there he seems to view his love for a man as some sort of broken romantic love for the female. Oh, and a real good chance to stick in a dick joke. I think that’s what I love most about Shakespeare’s sonnets. Any chance he can, he shoehorns in a dick joke. Lionizing romantic love or not, he knows how to have fun. In my sketchy knowledge of Marlowe, I’m wondering if there might be something in Edward II, although last time I read it, I came to the conclusion that Marlowe invented camp 400 years early.
Anyway, this has been fizzing in my mind, just a little bit (for which read “my every waking moment”) ever since. Love. Friendship love, as opposed to romantic love. It’s there in biblical terms. The agape (which just sounds like kissing with your mouth open, if you ask me) is the image of friendship love. Complete self-sacrificing love. It’s remarkably similar to the image of the Love of God (please forgive that capitalization, but it feels necessary), although that image always felt to me like an old armchair. Sort of enfolding, encompassing, and very comfortable. It never inspired in me visions of passion.
Yesterday, I came across the image – the quote to emblazon across the sky in letters twelve miles high.
“Love is friendship set on fire. A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities. A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
Friendship set on fire. Passion is not just a case of count the legs and divide by two. Passion is a driven act, a conscious choice, and the result of a connection at the deepest levels.
I’m still fighting my way out of the darknesses of my own soul, with very few relationships built on that kind of passion. most of those have been with women, anyhow. It’s always been easier to maintain a passionate and platonic relationship with women. I’ve never risked it with a man. to co-opt a metaphor and run with a theme, it always felt a little like playing with fire. But he strolled into my life, and flicked on the light. He sauntered past the guards in my mind while they were sleeping, and when they awoke, he was cooking them breakfast. He builds me up, urges me on, and tells me what I need to hear, even if I’m trying not to listen. There’s a lot of the image of agape there, the Christ-like love. And in those moments when the power flickers and suddenly my soul is in darkness again, I can reach out and grasp his hand. We’re still walking together.
The poets don’t say a lot, man. Not really. But I’m constantly learning, and one day, I’ll be able to say it for those who come after.