To love a boy
Is to see his face
And be wounded deep
In the belly, and stay
On his eyes and the form
Of his delicate face;
These you would trace
With fingers that show
Your wonder and need
And so you withhold.

Why such delight
On seeing this angel
And hearing the song
That comes from his lips?
From lightness warmth
The depth of his soul
So lovely and pure
Shimmering light
Verging on flight
Along with your own.

When did I change
And find myself now
On other side trapped
Looking back there
At what I had been
Or wanted to be?
When did the smooth
Delicate and rich
The playful and small
Become my first love?

What do I love
When I love you dear boy?
What pain do I nurture
Repeat within
Once your face appears
And your frame is present?
Is it perhaps
The being-so-close
The being-so-near
The having thin boundaries
Young faces shine with
Thin voices sing with
That promise my soul
That intimate space
In which it can swim
As it so wants and needs?

That intimate space
Embodied and promised
In vulnerable flesh,
inviting my eyes
Arousing my love
caressing my soul
While opening its wounds
Again, and again.

What do I long for,
What would suffice
What sort of embrace
Would then be enough?

Show us the Father
Said Phillip to Him
And that would suffice.
For held as beloved
As child as adopted
Lavished upon
And tenderly wanted
By the Father of all
Then, then alone
We return to be children
Child and beloved
Beneath the eternal
Embrace, the Paternal.

Under His gaze
Feeling His love
Knowing His grace
Feeding beneath
There we become
Infinitely small
Infinitely loved;
There we become
one with the the child
The boy that we all
Miss and search for
That beautiful-small
Jesus, adored.


Love Bertil.