White Stone Journal

What inconstant love is this,
that waxes and wanes
according to the course of the sun,
warming to love as the sunlight
raises the morning dew,
then failing
as the sun falls from the heights
and plunges into cold ocean?

No,
says my love,
your love is steady
but weak as the untrimmed wick
amid the draft.
Glowing bright in the graceful breezes of morning
but nearly failing when the wick is long spent
and evening winds rush to the sea.

What foolish astronomy
when the songbird can eclipse the sun;
when the croak of cold toads
drowns out the music of the stars.

But my love says,
I created the bird and the toad
and song and fen;
love me in these,
but not too much.

And so I must love
abandoned to the tides and waves,
yearning for everlasting morning.  

William E. Rushman, November 2001