Passion
       always seemed to me
a word of some unseemliness,
allied only with
       dark, torrid conceits,
       unsettling ferocity,
       and craving --
the obsessions some think 'love'.

But lately I have gazed
       in pools of depths unguessed
and found reflected there a face unknown,
set with a look
       irresistible as tempests,
       adamant as steel,
       and gentle as the stir from bud to bloom.
Intensity and grace in one regard,
       come to redeem its name.

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