I can’t tell you what love is.
It is as futile as grasping at smoke.
Its colours change as fast as a winter
sunset
And we all see an entirely different
pattern in the glowing sky.
All we can do is hope our version
matches
Someone, somewhere
Then hope that the sky stops changing.
We want to stop and take a snap-shot;
“There. That is my love”
But even as we say it,
The clouds have shifted again in the
light.
‘Love is constant’ says the book,
And it is –like the sky. Always there
But always changing.
The discomfort is eased by language,
By institution.
“This is our love. These are our
rules”
We prove It with rings of gold.
We demand the constancy, the
familiarity
Of the snapshot.
It is framed, worshipped
Deified and defined.
We no longer look up,
But straight ahead.
We are frightened of what
The moving sky might show.
I looked up.
It was already dark.
The colours long vanished.
But they will return tomorrow,
The painted fire of my mutable love,
As constant as the sky
And ever moving, ever swirling.
A thing doesn’t have to be the same
To be beautiful.
