The Light and the Shadow

You, the lantern of my dusk-bound maze, A shimmer soft where the mind frays. In your glow, my echoes still, A fleeting calm, a tempered will. Yet when her shadow meets your side, The air around you seems to bide. An unfamiliar hymn you sing, Your essence shifts, an untethered string. When tides arise, you choose retreat, A fleeting heart, unsure, discrete. Yet here I kneel, in silence torn, Entwined with wounds where love is worn. My soul, though heavy, clings to yours, A tethered ship to unsteady shores. Yet even anchors strain and break, In waters dark with paths opaque. You burn, you dim, my compass, my plight, Yet in your absence, I'm lost to the night. Remain, unmask the storm, the sea, For love, though bound, craves liberty. But as the circle bends and turns, A candle’s flame, though bright, still burns. To hold, to release—two fates entwined, Yet the answer, love, is never confined.