Give all -
not because it will return,
not because it promises shelter,
but because love, once named,
What asks the heart
asks the whole.
Anything withheld
undoes the offering.
Holding back
corrupts the gift.
Love does not accept conditions.
It will not be measured,
will not be folded smaller
to fit a safer life.
In that hour
I understood this plainly:
what is divided
is already lost.
Fear offered me reasons.
Love offered nothing
but itself.
So I placed everything there -
the future unnamed,
the body unguarded,
the quiet hope
that meaning does not require
witness.
What followed
was war.
Not as an idea,
not as a story,
but as days that had to be lived
and nights that did not end
when they were over.
I did not bring it home.
It came with me.
The cost was not the leaving,
but the living afterward -
carrying forward
what cannot be set down.
This is not regret.
It is remainder.
I gave all.
What remains
is what I live with.
GBS jr
1995
0 Comments