This Holding-Letting Go

This holding-letting go

Perplexes our reach

In moment-metered ebb and flow

Across Time’s phantom beach

Where love, longing and loss

Their tendrils intertwine

An ephemeral albatross

Of delicate design

How privileged are we

Love’s darling care to bear

The cap-sheaf of our deepest grief

Stuns us beyond compare

For in its gentle hold

We learn to dream and dance

Forgetting the climactic fold

Of double-edged romance

This test of want and will

Ravages human heart

While love composes madrigals

Its nuances impart

A tender, sweeter song

Of wildly, wondrous woe

As heartstrings resolute, hold on

While learning to let go

Love does not gift to us

Commodities to hoard

But grants within its lenient touch

A rare, richer reward

For touch, lavish, intense

Precedes the letting go

As it prepares a recompense

That holding cannot know

 

© Janet Martin