how we decorate our lives: with loves
composed of scents and colors and filigree
of the delicious dancing toward, and away
the rocking cradle of the heart
beautiful arc of the body's song
as it rises, ripens, tires and moves on

all these flowers are for you and of you
all these colors from and about you
all the lyrics sung because and by you
at the beginning and the end of days

how we decorate our lives: silks and bangles
scents and colors and filigree
because the spirit descended into form
and form is the canvas we are given
every day is paint
every touch the painter's brush
brings a blush to the surface of the skin
that everyone can witness and breathe in

the flower opens and opens
even as the petals fall away

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And every lover brings as his or her gift another reflection of the quality or your loving, and the quantity of your love.

Sometimes the arc of a love is as long as years, sometimes a lifetime. Or the music of a relationship may last some months, crescendo, soften, then complete: the dancers bow to one another, and leave the floor to take a ittle rest, or step to find another dancing partner. Or there might be the shortest, sweetest meeting, like a flash of light or lightning, the flash of a camera, the flash of his smile, the flush of her face. No matter the length, all loves are transformed; all loves end. If the agent is time or illness, if the agent is fear or frailty, even if it is disinterest... all loves polish some facet of your life, show you your desires, light up the little dark places you had kept hidden, and make your loving better (if you are watching), and your being warmer and brighter (if you are watching or not).

Someone once asked me why I would approach someone, if I knew there was no chance of a future together. I thought, then answered, "How can I know the future? I only know the present." One can only watch what is unfolding, and follow whatever is opening in front of you. And try your very best to speak truth with love, or love with truth. Who knows which partnership will last for years? And which will end abruptly? The strongest passion may not withstand even one day of co-authoring a routine, while the most unassuming comfort might be just what a home requires for deeper and longer sharing.

It is always difficult to realize there is an ending, to welcome it, to embrace it, when... well, sometimes it simply has arrived. Always difficult because we grasp life and deny death, so even the little endings become traumatic. We were lovers, now we are householders. We were householders, now we are parents. We were parents, now we are alone again together and so changed... so changed! We are aging and watch our friends pass away. Little endings, let them be conscious, let the heart feel them, cry for them a bit... so that the little beginning has earth and water enough to sprout. In fact, without the endings, there is no renewal. No birth without an end to gestation; no gestation without the release of lovemaking; no lovemaking without the end of childhood... and back and back, back and back my friends! And forward and forward, don't forget, as many endings and new beginnings as there are nights and days.

The best practice we can find in ending is to embrace all the gifts that were given. Yes, it is over, yes she has left, yes, he has found someone else, or found no one else... yes yes. Look what I found: that I can love. Look what I found: that I can give love even as we separate, and walk on different roads. When I give love even as one form of love is ending... then I have lost... what I did not have. Maybe I have lost nothing at all.

Philosophy? Sure. We either raise our hearts up with practiced compassion, or lower our heads and feel inadequate in our attempt to love. Don't lower your head. The ending of love doesn't mean love doesn't exist: just as the end of a life could never deny all of the beauty that living provided. If you avoid lowering your head... who can say?... perhaps it was not the end of love, but just one facet turning away, perhaps transforming into something deeper, or greater. Maybe it is you who is growing, not love that is dying.

Let the jewel of the heart be polished, become brighter and brighter. You will attract more love just from your light.

Do I write this to comfort myself? Of course I do.

It's true, nonetheless.

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