Guardian of Thee
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The Poem
Guardian of Thee
He is holding the light.Not metaphorically —he has it in his arms,the warm honeycomb glowof a thing made to illuminate,held the way you holdthe irreplaceable thing —carefully,completely,with the whole bodyturned toward itthe way a person turnstoward the one thingthey have decidedis worthturning toward.
Holding the light
Behind themthe cathedralis still becoming.Gaudí began itand did not finishand it has been finishing itselfever since —spire by spire,stone by stone,the long patient workof a thingthat knows what it isand is not in a hurryto be done.
Still becoming
This is alsowhat love is.
They are connectedby energy.Not the energy of the young,not the beginningwhen everything is voltage —the energy of the long middle,two peoplewho have beenin each other’s atmospherelong enoughthat the boundary between themhas become approximate,who know where the other one iswithout looking,who have developedthe specific gravityof two thingsthat orbit each otherso longthe orbit becomesthe natural stateof both.
Guardian of thee.Not protector —guardian,which is morethan the bodyplaced betweenthe beloved and the harm —the whole selfplaced betweenthe beloved and the forgetting,between the belovedand the worldthat would reduce them,the guardian who says:I know what you are.I have always known.I am here.
Superheroesstanding one against the world.Where they gothey go together —not because they have no choicebut because going togetheris the whole point,because the world looks differentwhen there is someone beside youwho sees it the same wayand also differentlyand the differenceis the conversationyou will havefor the rest of your lifeand never finish —which is alsowhat the cathedral is.
Unfinished.Becoming.Enough.
I had that once.Thirty yearsof someonewho held the lightwhen I couldn’t,who stoodbeside the unfinished cathedraland saidI see it,I see you,I am not leaving —and then left,the way things leavethat were always going to,not cruelly,just completely.
Ten years nowof the after.And I am at peace.And I am grateful.And I knowwhat it felt like —which is morethan most peopleever get to know.
One person.That’s all.Just onewho really sees you —and if you had that,even once,even for thirty yearsthat becameten years ago —you were not unlucky.You were exactlyas luckyas anyoneever gets to be.
If it comes onceit was real.
The cathedral
is still becoming.
So are you.