If light is free, why does it burn
when placed too close to what we yearn?
If love is vast, as once claimed,
why do we tremble when it's named?

She came with flowers, hands unsteady,
a blessing cast though far from ready.
Petals fell where vows were drawn,
soft as dusk, yet sharp as dawn.

And I - who spoke of suns that give
without demand, that simply live;
forgot that hearts are not the sky,
they bruise beneath a careless why.

She spoke of fire shaped as grace,
of saving one no light could face.
I named it wrong (or named too fast)
and chained her present to her past.

'What kind of love is built on death?"
Her anger stole her fragile breath.
And still I stood with borrowed sight,
a preacher blind before the light.

For what is love that cannot see
the wound beneath its poetry?
What good is truth, if harshly thrown,
that leaves another soul alone?

We were called, one voice at time,
to weigh our hearts, to face the rhyme.
Not all that shines is free of cost,
not all who give have never lost.

And in the end, no star had won,
no fading moon, no brighter sun.
Just hands once closed, now open wide,
with less to prove, and more inside.

So tell me now, what must we be
a single flame, or many, free?
If love is given, vast and whole,
can it still cradle every soul?

Even though light can burn
what was illuminated now share the burden;
Between the hears who heard what once was dark
sharing the weight can lit a new spark.

Penned by my hand on the 15th of Phaestian, in the year 1002 AF.