There is no ruler for love,
no way to precisely measure
the depth and breadth and height
a soul can reach,

just as you reach into the cupboard
for the glass with its fine red lines
stair-stepping up its squatty self
that measures only ounces,
not devotion,

just as your grandmother’s
measuring spoon cannot accurately
weigh a tablespoon’s worth of her
affection to pour into the chasm
of you.

So much is measureless,
it seems—that cloud wandering
lonely across a blue-sky day
or the weight of a ginormous
stormy mass darkening everything
beneath it before delivering
a good soaking rain.

Trying to measure the abstract,
you find after years of trying,
is pointless.

Like feeling some part deep inside—
one you can’t name and don’t want to—
that swells at the mention of a beloved
you’ll never see again.

Like standing before a painting
hanging alone on a vast white wall
that depicts no specific reality—
the very definition of abstract—
that somehow moves you.

Or, sitting in an audience, and,
as notes lift like tiny hot air
balloons, feeling yourself rise
with the orchestra, looking down,

all that limitless love
suffusing you to overflowing.