Poem May 23, 1936 Issue

Conversation at Nazareth

ALICE JACQUELINE SHAW

What love is? Well, that's a hard thing to say.
To be a proper craftsman, that is love.
There was a carpenter once, down the village there,
Who loved his work—he was right quick at it;
I heard his plane and hammer go all day.
At evening he'd come out before the door,
And sit awhile with us and talk as free
As any of us here. He used to talk
Of love, often as not. He held that love
Was something different from the common thought.
He used to say love meant perfection: all
One did, or said, or made, it should be perfect.
That's a hard saying.

What became of him?
He left here after a while, and the shop
Stood empty. Then I was away myself
For ten years, but I heard them say he went
As far as Jerusalem. I often think of him.
Perfection! That's a big word—only God
Is perfect as I see it. This man said
We could be perfect too; that is, if we loved,
Tried hard enough, saw God, morning, noon, night.
But loving's hard too. Can you love
A mean man or a thief? A liar's worse.
Can you love those? I used to ask him that.
He'd look at me with those great eyes of his
And say: "Love? Yes, love God, the rest will come.
There'll come a time when they will thieve no more,
Will lie no more; if you keep loving on,
They'll come, they'll come." And when he said those words,
His eyes would burn, and he'd get up and close
The door, not in a hurry, and would stride,
Quiet in all his movements, down the street—
I think he used to meet his mother there.

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