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Poem: “The Price of Friendship”

by on Sep 07, 2016 in Poetry
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The Price of Friendship

What price can be put
On a friendship?
None!
Not the measured sum
Of life itself.
Friends are part
Of one’s own self,
A fragment
Of the greater web
That weaves
The Universal Truth.
A Friend
Is one who makes up
Part of you,
The better part,
And brings forth treasures
Deeply stored.
A voice, a laugh, a glance
Worth diamonds
Etched with tears,
Scorched with rust,
Too precious
To forget.
Time is said to heal,
But it cannot
If healing is forgetting,
For then I should forget
Myself.
If friendship
Is a spark of fire,
Then ours has long-since died
On beds of coals,
Choking black and bitter –
A swirl of smoke
With pungent scent
Absorbing all.
You turn away
And forget
Or try to.
You say to me, be gone!
Or chip away
At ruby stone
That forms the heart.
Do you not know the pain
That crushes me?
Where is the love we shared?
Is it like a butterfly
Paralyzed by Autumn frost
With wings turned to crystal
That cannot fly?
Does it know it is dying
Or does darkness creep
So slowly,
So stealthily,
Like the breath of winter
Sucking out its life
Before it feels the chill?
Did it bid farewell
To summer skies
Or simply fall in flight,
A stiffness
Claiming wings
And darkness
Blinding eyes?
Did it feel its bed
Upon dead leaves
And the foot of Man
Crush down upon it?
No!
It was all over
Before it began…
I am ground down
Like corn is ground down
In the mill;
I am beaten
As batter is beaten,
And burned
As bread is burned over flames.
But in grinding, and beating, and burning
Is there not some yeast
To make me rise again?
In rising or sinking
I cannot forget you
No, never!
Turn aside from me,
And yet
I love you!
Without conditions,
Without reciprocation,
Without the heat of fire,
Or the flight of wings –
Love freely given
Never dies.
That is a certainty
Come wind and weather.
For you are part
Of my heart,
And the bond is beyond
This mortal vale.
Let it part someday…
Split, thread-bare rag!
Reveal the Mirror
Of Truth and Beauty
That reflects
Our inner souls
In the Light of our Source!
Then we shall see
Each other
As we truly are
And were meant to be,
And all the waiting
Will seem to have been
But a moment
For we shall love then
As we were meant to love
Fully, freely
Forever
The Price of Friendship

 © 2016 Avellina Balestri

The Price of Friendship


Avellina Balestri (also known by her pen name, Rosaria Marie) is a Catholic Christian with a deep appreciation for Celtic culture and mysticism. She is a founding member and Editor-in-Chief of the online magazine The Fellowship of the King (www.thefellowshipoftheking.net), a place where spirituality and creativity meet (which, by the way, is open to submissions). In addition to reading and writing extensively on matters of history, spirituality, and culture, she is also a recording artist, singing traditional folk songs and her own compositions as well as playing the penny whistle and bodhran drum. In all her endeavors, she draws her inspiration from the Ultimate Love and Source of Creativity, and hopes to share that love and creativity with others.