How do I love thee? ---Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Rad Dad!

We are on a rescue mission...

I just rescued one from my recent past, written for a colleague who claimed he's a radical dad - we renamed him "Rad Dad" ...

He hides she seeks, He shouts she shrieks ...
There in the rush from the chaotic freaks !
there's a mad racket, they love the noise,
And when Mom comes along, they quietly poise.
He's her buddy, who's wacky, wild and mad,
A Rad Dad - the best a daughter could have had!

He's the pony, for his princess to ride,
She strokes him kindly and gleams in pride.
But a mild pinch and the pony and she fall,
And to Mom they say, "Nothing happened at all!"
He's her buddy, who's wacky, wild and mad,
A Rad Dad - the best a daughter could have had!

Now a kid, next a teenager, later a father -
He's in her times. Just as old as her rather!
In all her many moods, steady to whimsical,
Mom is usually rational and Dad is radical !
He's her buddy, who's wacky, wild and mad,
A Rad Dad - the best a daughter could have had!

Off fears...

Trying a different kind of rhyme, less structured,...

And waking up to compelling thoughts at the midnight hour after more than a month and half ! The feeling is liberating !

In the warmth of dreams,
In the twilight's lull,
Is a place with black beams
Where Darkness is beautiful.

In the rising din of our days,
In the search for a remedy,
There is a friendly little space
Where Silence is a melody.

In a world of winding ways,
Destinations not in sight.
In no answers to question plays,
Innocence is a might

In memories that you loved,
Gone by the mind's measure.
Is a chance to lose the crowd
Where Loneliness is pleasure.

Words don't matter sweet or curt.
When neither fire burning
Nor a needle's prick can hurt,
Numbness is a blessing.

What is common to this kind of being,
Is the lack of fear when we aren't seeing,
Of the unknown when we aren't listening,
Of the known when we aren't more aware,
Of the people who will always care,
And the last few moments we have to spare.

Their counterparts will come to please,
But in the loss of fear there is eternal ease!

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE---MARLOWE

COME live with me, and be my love;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber-studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

REPLY TO MARLOWE
IF all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

The gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,—
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.