On the off chance ...

On the off chance that I'm not the only one who needs to remember this today, I'm reposting from last summer. This isn't a poem. It's Lewis's inimitable prose. But I broke up the lines because it feels like poetry to me.

Lewis On Love

To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung
and possibly be broken.
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact,
you must give your heart to no one,
not even to an animal.
Wrap it carefully round with hobbies
and little luxuries;
avoid all entanglement;
lock it up safe in the casket
or coffin of your selfishness.
But in that casket
--safe, dark, motionless, airless--
it will change.
It will not be broken;
it will become unbreakable, impenetrable,
irredeemable.
The only place outside Heaven
where you can be perfectly safe
from all the dangers of love
is Hell.

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man