Love

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.

I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help

Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.

I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.

You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.

--Roy Croft (1907-1973)

You Were Born Together (from The Prophet)

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the wings of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each of you be alone,
Even as the strings of the lute are alone though they quiver
with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hands of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow in each other's shadow.

--Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

from The Love Poems of Marichiko

You ask me what I thought about
Before we were lovers.
The answer is easy.
Before I met you
I didn't have anything to think about.

Who is there? Me.
Me who? I am me. You are you.
You take my pronoun,
And we are us.

Love me. At this moment we
Are the happiest
People in the world.

--Marichiko (Kenneth Rexroth) (American, 1905-1982)

I Remember

By the first of August
the invisible beetles began
to snore and the grass was
as tough as hem and was
no color -- no more than
the sand was a color and
we had worn our bare feet
bare since the twentieth
of June and there were times
we forgot to wind up your
alarm clock and some nights
we took our gin warm and neat
from old jelly glasses while
the sun blew out of sight
like a red picture hat and
one day i tied my hair back
with a ribbon and you said
that i looked almost like
a puritan lady and what
I remember best is that
the door to your room was
the door to mine.

--Anne Sexton (American, 1928-1974)

Two Trees

A portion of your soul has been
Entwined with mine.
A gentle kind of togetherness, while
Separately we stand.
As two trees deeply rooted in
Separate plots of ground,
While their topmost branches,
Come together,
Forming a miracle of lace
Against the heavens.

--Janet Miles, 20th Century`