Love Is Not All

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Do you think if I read this continually that I might believe it someday?

Straight From The Heart

I was visiting my dear Cupcake Man and discovered that this friend had reached right down onto one of the soft quiet beaches shoring the deep oceans of my heart and discovered a lovely sea shell that he plucked up, put in his pocket and took back to his own shore.

He proudly displayed it by way of publishing it and there I discovered it, recognizing it right away but never  having seen it before. That familiar shell brought forth a sea spray of salt water from my heart to my eyes and the waves inside me swelled with a powerful current.

Here is the treasure he has taken from the dark and placed prominently in the light...

"Overboard I fell, overlong we dwelled. I was lifted up in the arms of that strong one, lifted up into his cape, too tired to thank the man, I spent a month harvesting his grapes. When he let me play with his children, when he let me sit at his table, I gained a position, small bit of dignity in the household a go to child when a salesperson dropped in from town. "Please sir sit down and let me pour you green tea." Please sir, I would think to myself, can you tell me what happens in town? I was thirteen and heard of the glass fountains in the main square, covered with lights in spring evenings." ~ Cupcake Man

It is his creation and it is my truth.

Isn't it surreal when we find ourselves in each other by mere whim or chance? Perhaps it isn't chance at all, perhaps it is not serendipity perhaps it is because we are all made of the same elements of everything in the universe and sometimes those elements rediscover grains of themselves when circumstance brings them near one another again & again.

Thank you, Cupcake Man, how very sweet this is.

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

~John Masefield

The Rhyme of the Dream-Maker Man

The Rhyme of the Dream-Maker Man

Down near the end of a wandering lane,

That runs 'round the cares of a day,

Where Conscience and Memory meet and explain

Their quaint little quarrels away.

A mist air-castle sits back in the dusk
where brownies and hobgoblins dwell
And this is the home
Of a busy old gnome
who is making up dream-things to sell,
My dear,

The daintiest dreams to sell.

He makes golden dreams of wicked men's sighs.
He weaves on the thread of a hope
The airiest fancies of pretty brown eyes,
And patterns his work with a trope.

The breath of a rose and the blush of a wish
Boiled down to the ghost of a bliss,
He wraps in a smile
Every once in a while
And calls it the dream of a kiss,
Dear heart,
The dream of an unborn kiss.

Last night when I walked thro` the portals of sleep
And came to the weird little den,
I looked in the place where the elf-man should keep
A dream that I buy now and then.

`Tis only the sweet happy dream of a day-
Yet one that I wish may come true-
But I learned from the elf
That you'd been there yourself
And he'd given my dear dream to you,
Sweetheart,
He'd given our dream to you.

~William Allen White

A Denial

A Denial

We have met late-it is too late to meet,
   O friend, not more than friend!
Death's forecome shroud is tangled round my feet,
And if I step or stir, I touch the end.
   In this last jeopardy
Can I approach thee, I, who cannot move?
How shall I answer thy request for love?
   Look in my face and see.

I love thee not, I dare not love thee! go
   In silence; drop my hand.
If thou seek roses, seek them where they blow
In garden-alleys, not in desert-sand.
   Can life and death agree,
That thou shouldst stoop thy song to my complaint?
I cannot love thee. If the word is faint,
   Look in my face and see.

I might have loved thee in some former days.
   Oh, then, my spirits had leapt
As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise!
Before these faded cheeks were overwept,
   Had this been asked of me,
To love thee with my whole strong heart and head,
I should have said still . . . yes, but smiled and said,
   "Look in my face and see!"

But now . . . God sees me, God, who took my heart
   And drowned it in life's surge.
In all your wide warm earth I have no part
A light song overcomes me like a dirge.
   Could Love's great harmony
The saints keep step to when their bonds are loose,
Not weigh me down? Am I a wife to choose?
   Look in my face and see.

While I behold, as plain as one who dreams,
   Some woman of full worth,
Whose voice, as cadenced as a silver stream's,
Shall prove the fountain-soul which sends it forth;
   One younger, more thought-free
And fair and gay, than I, thou must forget,
With brighter eyes than these . . . which are not wet . . .
   Look in my face and see!

So farewell thou, whom I have known too late
   To let thee come so near.
Be counted happy while men call thee great,
And one belovèd woman feels thee dear!
   Not I! That cannot be.
I am lost, I am changed, I must go farther, where
The change shall take me worse, and no one dare
   Look in my face and see.

Meantime I bless thee. By these thoughts of mine
   I bless thee from all such!
I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine,
Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch
   Of loyal troth. For me,
I love thee not, I love thee not! Away!
Here's no more courage in my soul to say
   "Look in my face and see."

~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My Heart And I

MY HEART AND I

Enough! we're tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason's knife,
As Heaven's sweet life renews earth's life
With which we're tired, my heart and I.

You see we're tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colors could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune's end,
We loved too true to keep a friend;
At last we're tired, my heart and I.

How tired we feel, my heart and I
We seem of no use in the world;
Our fancies hang gray and uncurled
About men's eyes indifferently;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet:
What do we here, my heart and I?

So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
It was not thus in that old time
When Ralph sat with me 'neath the lime
To watch the sunset from the sky.
"Dear love, you're looking tired," he said:
I, smiling at him, shook my head.
'Tis now we're tired, my heart and I.

So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
Though now none takes me on his arm
To fold me close and kiss me warm
Till each quick breath end in a sigh
Of happy languor.  Now, alone,
We lean upon this graveyard stone,
Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.

Tired out we are, my heart and I.
Suppose the world brought diadems
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems
Of powers and pleasures?  Let it try.
We scarcely care to look at even
A pretty child, or God's blue heaven,
We feel so tired, my heart and I.

Yet who complains?  My heart and I?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out:
Disdain them, break them, throw them by!
And if before the days grew rough
We once were loved, used, - well enough,
I think, we've fared, my heart and I.

~Elizabeth Barrett Browing

A Farewell To A Friend~

We've seen and done so much,  you and I, haven't we?
Been through highs and lows together,
Sailed & flown through days & months & years, together.
We've laughed and cried, loved and fought,
You and I have watched so much time pass;
More than can be measured.

There is a bend in our road that you cannot see,
A change in the cadence of our walk.
There is a road that I must take alone, dear one,
And though I am letting go of your hand, know that I will
Always hold you in my heart.
I know there will be a day when this road brings me back
To you
I will hold your hand to my cheek & embrace you so tightly.

But until then,
I have promises to keep; promises made to people
I love
And I must keep my word.
So farewell, for a time, sweet friend.
May wings of Angels encircle you,
And keep you with my love,
Until I can return.

Thanks to Radeka Photography for the image

All For Love

For you, with love, on this Valentines Day ~ XO

"Have you never met a woman who inspires you to love? Until your every sense is filled with her? You inhale her. You taste her. You see your unborn children in her eyes and know that your heart has at last found a home. Your life begins with her, and without her it must surely end."

"There are only four questions of value in life. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made of? What is worth living for? What is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love."

~ Don Juan DeMarco

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you." ~ Dracula


"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind." ~ A Midsummer Night's Dream


"If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."
"Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night!"
~ Romeo And Juliet

How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said. ~Victor Hugo

"I want to crawl to her feet, whimper to be forgiven, for loving her, for needing her more than my own life, for belonging to her more than my own soul."

"If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day."

"...he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."

"If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your slave."
"Be with me always. Take any form, drive me mad, only do not leave me in this dark alone where I cannot find you." ~ Wuthering Heights

I can no longer think of anything but you. In spite of myself, my imagination carries me to you. I grasp you, I kiss you, I caress you, a thousand of the most amorous caresses take possession of me. ~Honore de Balzac

"I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach." ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"I will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all. No...not the artful postures of love, not playful and poetical games of love for the amusement of an evening. but love that...overthrows life. Unbiddable, ungovernable, like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture." ~ Shakespeare In Love

"He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began." ~Leo Tolstoy

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...and for Jack, whomever and wherever you might be, I am waiting:

"The man of my dreams has almost faded now. The one I have created in my mind. The sort of man each woman dreams of in the deepest and most secret reaches of her heart. I can almost see him now before me. What would I say to him, if he were really here? Forgive me, I have never known this feeling. I've lived without it all my life. Is it any wonder, then, that I fail to recognize you? You-- who brought it to me for the first time. Is there any way I can tell you how my life has changed? Any way at all to let you know what sweetness you have given me? There is so much to say...I cannot find the words. Except for these-- I love you! Such would I say to him, if he were really here." ~Elise, Somewhere In Time