Is love like this? A trap, a whirring thing
That hunts you down by beak, and flock, and wing,
And makes you turn, with mesmerizing stare,
To see it gathered in the folds of air?
Perhaps not love. Perhaps what you will take
For love, when it’s all else that you’ll forsake
To have the feeling, pecking at the glass,
That whelms the self until the moments pass.
What causes this? Oh, it’s so hard to tell.
Boredom. Daily life not going well.
A tingling in a dream of what could happen,
A witch that whispers that the dark will open
To a word, a thought, an ordinary glance:
And all the birds fly in on circumstance.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
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But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
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