I owe a lot
to those I do not love.
Relief in accepting
others care for them more.
Joy that I am not
wolf to their sheep.
Peace be with them
for with them I am free
––love neither gives
nor knows how to take these
things.
I don't wait for them
from window to door.
Almost as patient
as a sun dial,
I understand
what love never could.
I forgive
what love never would.
Between rendezvous and letter
no eternity passes,
only a few days or weeks.
Our trips always turn out
well:
concerts are enjoyed,
cathedrals toured,
landscapes in focus.
And when seven rivers and
mountains
come between us,
they are the rivers and
mountains
found on any map.
The credit's theirs
if I live in three
dimensions,
in a non-lyrical and
non-rhetorical space,
with a real, ever-shifting
horizon.
They don't even know
how much they carry in their
empty hands.
"I owe them
nothing,"
love would have said
on this open topic.