POETRY PAUSE

DEFINITION

I Googled love and there I found,

Webster’s exposition of that noun,

And from that paradigm a shift,

To verb and adjective adrift,

With passion, lust, and ardor freed,

Of rational thought and lucid deed.

 

I looked up heralded writers who chose,

To extolled the ways of love in prose,

Von Goethe whose love would find no equal,

No matter when in any sequel.

 

Then on to poets who used a rhyme,

To sing of love so blessed to find,

Inquiring of the infinite ways,

Enumerated in the phrase,

How do I love thee, let me count,

The ways in which desire surmounts,

My vain attempts to quantify,

Posed Elizabeth Browning with a sigh.

 

Twas Shakespeare who was wont to write,

Love flows from hearts and not the sight,

Then Countee Cullen of love that ends,

Tis worse than death and then append,

To every man that would decry,

This truth, he’s nothing but a lie.

 

So, what is love but affection true?

A profoundly passionate personal brew,

With laughter and respect added in profusion,

The result, a definition sans any confusion.

copyright 2018 dbw