Sentimiento

 

I cannot hurt you

Without at the same time hurting myself

And that's how I know I still love you.

 

But I shouldn't even say that to you

For you will take it to mean

What it does not.

 

Please don't.

 

Nature creates flowers

And man cuts them and puts them in a bowl

And they shine for awhile

And then die.

 

They can be pressed;

Their petals can be saved;

They can be 'embalmed' by drying

But they die the moment they are taken

From their natural soil.

 

Nature creates love.

 

It happens like flowers --

In many places and at many times.

And it regenerates itself

When left in its natural soil.

 

But man cuts it and puts it in a bowl.

And it dies.

 

What presently remains

Is like a pressed flower.

It is real --

You can see it,

You can feel it,

And all the memories are with it,

Evoked at the sight of it.

 

But it is dead.

 

And it is not anything like

The original.

 

And yet . . .

It hurts to handle it roughly.

And you cannot throw it out.

 

(There are house plants, to be sure.

But it is not the natural state.

Nor is a cage, or a zoo, or a harness

. . . or a marriage.)

 

I hurt when I hurt you,

But the flower is dead.

And all the sprinkling of tears,

And all the efforts to replant it,

Will not bring it back to life.

 

This you must know.

 

And it matters not

How it 'might have' thrived

For it is now dead.

 

The love that remains

Is the love for what was,

Which is not the same thing

As what was.

Return to Ripening Seasons #25