I used to think love

blossomed in an edgy brilliance

like those thistle flowers

too prickly to touch

and then surely eaten

by night rabbits.

 

But then the Beloved

took my hand

and flew me into a hurricane

the cool blooming

chaos of my dreams.

 

All my worst fears swirled there

in the black-cloud underbelly

leaping to life any time

my attention landed on them.

 

As I faced each

with unblinking lioness eyes,

the images softened to but hazy reveries

from some life

I could hardly recall.

 

A new identity came to be:

a self within,

so like that rescue-dog,

who never for one moment

pauses in her wagging-tail devotion.

 

And so I learned that love

is not some here and gone state.

It does not tightrope

along the barbed-wire,

but instead curls itself

around the fencepost

and nestles in

with the moonflowers.