I could rage against you, light
that opened my heart with unexpected precision,
cut through protective layers concealing my
molten lava core.

I could weep endless tears, mourn
wounded soul and body threadbare from tender
places your love seared through to expose
savage pain within.

I could spin tornado-like.
Tempestuous you say I am hell-bent on
destruction, born in fact of this insanity, your
lasting legacy.

Exhausted by raging and
weeping and spinning, ever-spinning, I choose only
to acknowledge who you were and are to me, who I am and
who I was to you.

I examine you through
lens of time and space, peer like Galileo at distant
events, dismiss present pain in favor of objectivity.
Bound by earth, I fail.

I see me, here, center of
my universe, and you, there, orb of fire, source
of strength and warmth, so necessary
for hope’s survival.

In vain I spin, spin. You shine,
shine on, oblivious to my place among the planets.
I would pass through cold, dark night a million times for just another
moment in the sun.

Copyright 2002, Dawn Richerson