Doing Justice To Love? Poem by RIC BASTASA

justice is an
eternal search
a way of
balancing
that does not
balance
at all, or sometimes
maybe
when you feel you
are near it
and yet it becomes
too slippery
to your touch

this morning i
like to tell you that
i like to do justice
to love

that i have not rendered
what is due it
that i am a kind of
a shortcoming
a big lapse
a slippery hand that slips
away from your
body

i like to tell that you
i am unjust
not having loved you so
well
or even if i want to
i simply can't

you are running with time
you are short of it
and at the last hour of
the rush you tell
me that it is time to leave
and that something
shall be done

you kiss my forehead
not my lips
you tell me ' i love you'
and then
you say 'bye'

i have not told you anything
because i know
that you are returning
because i know that i am
not

or must i contrive about
new choices
that there are many ways of
loving you

that there comes a time
when the moon is full and
we are together
under its light and we say
that despite everything
those lapses and
shortcomings we keep on
that hold

we love each other no matter
what
even if we do not love even if we
feel nothing
even if we are deprived
of any emotion
even if the shallowest feeling
does not touch
us with its fingers again
the fingers of a
child
unborn.