Only now can I truthfully say

Image from Lucy's album

You cut the cord of conditional love
by leaving.
I tried desperately to repair it –
Tears, pleas, remonstrations, messages, silence
A pitiful ensemble of self-inflicted pain
and, fortunately,
impotent

Meanwhile, the stream flowed
as steady as ever
unperturbed
like a sleeping
babe

I sat by it
days and nights
wondering at its constancy
its unremarkable magic
of being shaped by the land around it
yet wearing it away
and every stone or boulder in its course,
eventually

Such, I realized, is the nature of
unconditional love
Indeed, there is no other love
for that is love’s quality -
unconditional

And like the stream -
constant
and like its unremarkable magic -
unstoppable
And like the love I’ve now discovered -
free, limitless and without
need

Only now can I truthfully say:
I love you.

Between the long shadows

Image

Between the
long shadows
of the slipping sun
the spirit of
unspoken sorrows
hovers
trapped in its own
confusion
unable to tell
formless fact
from
fleeting fiction
Ducking and diving
it makes
hollow proclamations
of love
understanding neither
its entreaties
nor its
intent
yet knowing
beyond its own
shadows of doubt
the scourge
of its
endless exile.

Your radiant love!

Radiance by Brent Boechler at bau-xi

I want to
float
unimpeded
on an
imperturbable
bed of
silken, shimmering
ocean
traveling forever
in your
timeless, endlessness

I want to
soar
weightless
through
frictionless
air
charged
by the
radiance
of your
love

I want to
be
shattered
into
iridescence
seen only
by
the unseen eye
of
truth

I want to
be
the glow, the glint, the gleam
that remains
when all else
congeals
into
dim abstraction
The spark
in your
radiant love!

Oh my darling, you have yet to learn

You haven’t said anything. Are you tired?

No, not at all.

What then?

Silence.

You smile but have not said a word. What is it?

I have been speaking volumes to you, pouring endearments over you so that they cover every particle, every wave of your being.

When? How?

Oh my darling, oh my dream, you have yet to learn that I am always here, always speaking of my love for you, always, always adoring you. Oh, oh, that you not notice so much of it. What shall I do? What shall I do?

I was mad

I was seething, writhing, frothing mad! Three years now, I have been training her to listen to me, obey my commands and all of that undone in a moment of…what??? Wilfulness? Stupidity? I am angry because I feel I have failed. Again! Others seemed to have trained their dogs well, why can’t I? I cannot help noticing similarities with my children.

How I did my best. How I bore the anguish, strived to overcome my impatience, my anger, my hurt. How I meditated, trained my mind, kept finding ways of putting my hurt aside. That was the hardest. That still is the hardest, to put my hurt aside and continue to love. To feel love, to show love, to love despite the indignation, the criticism, the ignoring, the sullen silence that I was tempted toward. So hard. So punishing. I am weary. A failure.

And I? I cannot but love you, despite what you think of yourself. Why, not to adore you would be suicide! I am alive for you and you alone.

Do you not feel my ugliness? My contemptibility? How could you possibly love me as I am, as I feel thus? I can barely stand myself.

Ah flower! Sweet, sweet bud of heaven, raging seas could not match your anger nor thunder explode louder than your frustration, but only those who have eyes and ears to see and feel it could see and feel it. And I happen to have neither.

So you are blind and deaf? And if you are, how can I possibly take seriously your endearing words, your entreaties, your disarming poetry? It is a sham and I want nothing of it!