Love's Lesson
In your arms, my sigh escaped
from deepest desire, hidden under dust
of years of duties that life had shaped.
The yearnings denied, Love held in trust.
From your loving look, a seventh wave,
(and I had stopped counting so long ago),
swept away the dust but took care to save
the bright jewel now shining in its flow.
Was I too quick to seize its light
that shimmered awake after years asleep?
So hungry, with both hands I clutched it tight,
and forgot it was something I cannot keep.
Now in your eyes an empty distance
reminding me how it was I failed:
in clinging to a single instance
Love’s flow was stopped, its color paled.
That jewel, now tethered by this loss
to other losses not yet grieved
reflects only just how great the cost
of not believing what I once believed:
That Love needs neither proof nor claim,
its length not measured by a point in time.
May its power prove greater than my shame
in clutching it to make it mine.
May this loss teach me to let Love be --
to hold it precious, not hold it tight;
that any jewel it presents to me
I return to its source, to its own light.
-- meganthemegan, November 13, 2005
