LOOK UP

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.