Light. Lightness. Light-heartedness. <br />Who can measure their measureless weight? <br /> <br />On the kitchen scales, we balance <br />weight against weight; but how different <br />the substances - on the one scale, <br />iron weights with their iron discipline <br />maintain like monks and nuns their constancy; <br /> <br />on the other scale, perhaps fine flour, <br />poured as bakers recommend, from a height <br />to catch the air between the grains; a foretaste <br />of that greater levity that yeast will bring; <br /> <br />Lorenzo de’ Medici, praising publicly his tutor, <br />Marsilio Ficino, said of him, that one thing in him which he loved <br />was that in his speech, gravity was mixed with levity, <br />and levity, with gravity; <br /> <br />what then, of our substance? In the lightness <br />of our being, then how bright the light! And in <br />the dark and heavy days, what lightness of the light may lurk <br />in melancholia – a yeast of wisdom yet to act? <br /> <br />And then – there’s love…its golden weightiness <br />so full of light; and hammered out and spread, <br />the brighter then…oh, who can measure out <br />the lightness, brightness, of our joy? What golden scales <br />of justice, mercy, grace, <br />may weigh the shining of a shining face?<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/who-can-weigh-love/
