The Weight of Loving

She is a white flower-

soft as the dawn,

pure as untouched snow,

graceful enough to make silence bloom.

I am only a weathered rock-

rough and worn,

heavy and cold,

my jagged edges carved by storms untold.

How could stone ever embrace a flower?

Would I not scratch what I long to shelter,

break what I wish to keep whole,

leave dust where only fragrance should wander?

So I remain where the shadows fall,

loving without reaching,

caring without claiming,

admiring without asking.

If ever she steps away,

I will not call it cruelty.

Perhaps she keeps her distance

to spare her petals from my edges,

and to spare this stone

from the pain of becoming the wound it feared.

Some loves are not measured by how closely

they stand,

but by how gently they choose to remain apart.

-Jude Thomas