PEDESTAL

Your virtues exalt you
Above the ordinary!
Your sweetness, your kindness, your understanding
Lift you up.
Your own specialness places you
Among the blazing stars of the firmament.
Yet your humanity at last brings you gently to earth
Where I may love you.
No, you are not a goddess.
You are a woman of flesh and blood,
Soft and warm,
Subject to all the flaws
That flesh and blood are heir to.
Imperfect in your humaness.
Yet...
This only makes me love you all the more.
*
Did not Cyrano lift up his Roxanne?
Did not Quixote exalt his Dulcinea?
Placed on pedestals - so that they could not be reached.
*
Do I not love Roxanne and Dulcinea
Even as much as I love you?
As much as I love Lucinda?
Why then do I return to YOU again and again
If I do love THEM so?
Swimming and swimming your River
Against all currents?
Is is not because
You are the most human,
        the most warm,
        the most gracious?
Understanding...forgiving...always...
Knowing that I am on no pedestal...
Accepting that...accepting me...
As I am...
Even while wishing for me to grow...
That is the true love...
The sign of your humanity.
It is not the sign of a goddess.
No, it is something much better, much finer.
*
If ever I did place you on that pedestal,
I now ask you to place your hand firmly in mine...
So will I help you step down,
Plant your lovely feet on firm earth,
Stand with me here - on earth,
Hold me close...close to you...
Look squarely into my eyes,
Under blazing stars.
Be my Lucinda once more!