An-other in Love

(For Ruth)

He cried until his body ached, and so she tended to him, and there, amongst the tears, something new was born in their differences.

What she thought and how her mind
Was thinking were to him
Shores beyond, too infinitely
Distant to begin
He gave her up, told himself
That nothing could provide
The lover that he clamoured for
Hid in her inside
-
Though he held her, as they touched
She seemed to him as two
One he made in fantasy and
One he never knew
-
Loving that which he could own
His heart stayed locked inside
So he drifted out to sea with
His own timeless bride
Landlocked in his mind she sang
Him perfect lullabies
All the while the girl he ran from
Watched her lover die
-
He made his mind to love her
As idea, whispered thought
Left her shores and roamed as naked
Lonely thinker wrought
-
So he had her in his heart
But only as a dream
Merely as imagined beauty
As what might have been
What he held in fantasy
And her in her alone
Made for two marooned, distinctly
Loving on their own
-
But how restless did he sleep
With no one by his side!
Knowing that her island wandered
Amongst other tides
-
Though still tragic was his thought
Too wretched to ignore:
‘How can I love what isn’t me?’ he
Cried out from his shore
Not as selfish, not as proud –
A common tragedy –
Simply felt the gulf of Being
Between ‘you’ and ‘me’
-
Then, ruptured, the girl he dreamed
Began to drift and pale
This thought of love he loved so much
Burned as figment failed
-
Turning back to lands more firm –
Back to the earth he’d left –
There he saw her, in flesh solid!
Sight of naught bereft
How he cried as beauty shone!
How his heart ached anew!
Girl with golden shadows casting
Future paths for two
-
So he strained to figure how
He might this ocean cross
How in all of heaven he could
Love amongst the loss
-
To his passionate tumult
The foreign island spoke
Voice so perfect, silk-spun tones, and
Love in him awoke
‘Love’s an-other’s mystery’
She whispered to his tears
‘Love is that which knows it circles
Around unknown spheres’
-
‘Love is that which does not land
But in eternal quest
Ceaselessly betroths its passion
In unknowing, rests’
-
As she spoke these words he glimpsed
A world behind her eyes
Yearned to be a traveller who
Never left her skies
Evermore her otherness
He endlessly explored
Found the boundless motion of a
Fixity in awe
-
This he learnt in true love’s throes:
Love has no edge to find
Never does it quell its wonder
With the other’s mind