You are the moon I never dare to steal from the sky,
not because I could not reach,
but because I would never forgive myself
for dimming what the world deserves to see.

And yet, being what I am, a quiet selenophile,
I cannot pass a night without looking up
as if my eyes were made for only one kind of ache.

So I remain at a distance,
where longing is safest and love stays unclaimed.
I make a kind of peace with it,
the tender pride of devotion that asks for nothing,
except the privilege of witnessing.

I will tuck you into my words
the way one hides a name in a prayer,
not to possess you,
but to keep your light from being lost to time.

“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.” — Pablo Neruda

Let me be this, then.
The Earth that never stops turning toward you,
receiving your moonlight with open silence,
holding its sweetness,
and bearing its gentle pain,
always.