Light Of Love Poem by Vinod Sharma

How can a man not love you?
Do I ask because I do?
Or is it your steel and innocence,
Wrapped in honey and virtue?

What power has kept you sane and safe
Through agonising denial and pain?
How have broken threads not furrowed
Silken skin under tearing strain?

How do dead eyes light up still
A smile so easily kiss your lips?
How has your much battered soul
Swum unsullied through hardships?

What does still make song and dance
Jingle your two lonely hips?
What makes love and laughter
Glow so through your dark eclipse?

No black hole can capture,
A light that it can't blacken,
Nor Ketu* keep swallowed,
A moon that will not darken.

Milk remains in water pure,
The Swan** divine well knows;
A diamond does not lose it shine,
Buried in blackest coal.

The full moon keeps alive its glow,
Behind a heavy cloud;
Love its light does always show,
However thick the shroud.

I have held the poisoned chalice,
Sipped your nectar oozing through;
So I do and say: he cannot be a man,
He who cannot love you.
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*The body of the demon that, as per Hindu mythology, swallows the moon. Known as the South Node as per astrology.
** The only creature, as per Hindu mythology, capable of separating milk from water once they have been mixed.