God taught me of love.
How it was a like a kite,
that you lengthen and let loose.
Or the string of a bow
that sets an arrow on its path.
I guess nothing he taught me
was that it was something you kept.
Rather it was something that you
kept on giving out;
like the loosening strings of a kite.
You don’t know where the
wind will take your love.
It might whip far and wide
and then return to you in an arc.
Whatever, your love is going where it’s meant.
Its place isn’t to stay
bound in your heart,
or in a neat little box all tied up.
Love finds its full expression
in the giving up.
In the lengthening out.
We were made not to keep
one another in our sight.
For the reach of love’s as far,
as daytime is from night.
We love most when we realise
the gift in giving up.
How its not the tight rein
that maintains our control.
But the loose hand…
that holds each other up
in flight.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
March 2017
