A 'Thank You' Note

There is much I owe to those I do not love. The relief in accepting they are closer to another. Joy that I am not the wolf to their sheep. My peace be with them for with them I am free, and this, love can neither give, nor know how to take. I don't wait for them from window to door. Almost as patient as a sun dial, I understand what love does not understand. I forgive what love would never have forgiven. Between rendezvous and letter no eternity passes, only a few days or weeks. My trips with them always turn out well. Concerts are heard. Cathedrals are toured. Landscapes are distinct. And when seven rivers and mountains come between us, they are rivers and mountains well known from any map. It is thanks to them that I live in three dimensions, in a non-lyrical and non-rhetorical space, with a shifting, thus real, horizon. They don't even know how much they carry in their empty hands. 'I don't owe them anything', love would have said on this open topic.