***

Love Sonnet 17 by Pablo Neruda

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you simply, without problems or pride:

I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you,

so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,

so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

***

A Falling by Beau Taplin

The rains have their oceans

and the sun has its moon –

everything

needs a

reason for falling

and

I

have

you.

***

All I Know About Love by Neil Gaiman

This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing.
This is everything I’ve learned about marriage: nothing.

Only that the world out there is complicated,
and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,
and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,
is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze,
and not to be alone.

It’s not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it’s what they mean.
Somebody’s got your back.
Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn’t want to rescue you
or send for the army to rescue them.

It’s not two broken halves becoming one.
It’s the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home
because home is wherever you are both together.

So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing,
like a book without pages or a forest without trees.

Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them.
Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials.
Because nobody else’s love, nobody else’s marriage, is like yours,
and it’s a road you can only learn by walking it,
a dance you cannot be taught,
a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.

And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand,
not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.
And your hands will meet,
and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.

And that’s all I know about love.

***

An extract from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like
volcanoes and then subsides.  And when it subsides you have to make a
decision.  You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined
together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.  Because
this is what love is.

Love is not breathlessness, it is not
excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion.
That is just being in love, which any fool can do.  Love itself is what
is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art
and a fortunate accident.

Those that truly love have roots
that grow towards each other underground, and, when all the pretty
blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one
tree and not two.

***

The Confirmation by Edwin Muir

Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face.
I in my mind had waited for this long,
Seeing the false and searching for the true,
Then found you as a traveller finds a place
Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong
Valleys and rocks and twisting roads. But you,
What shall I call you? A fountain in a waste,
A well of water in a country dry,
Or anything that’s honest and good, an eye
That makes the whole world seem bright. Your open heart,
Simple with giving, gives the primal deed,
The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed,
The hearth, the steadfast land, the wandering sea.
Not beautiful or rare in every part.
But like yourself, as they were meant to be.

***

Smiling is Infectious by Spike Milligan

Smiling is infectious,
you catch it like the flu,
When someone smiled at me today,
I started smiling too.

I passed around the corner
and someone saw my grin.
When he smiled I realized
I’d passed it on to him.

I thought about that smile,
then I realized its worth.
A single smile, just like mine
could travel round the earth.

So, if you feel a smile begin,
don’t leave it undetected.
Let’s start an epidemic quick,
and get the world infected!

***

Let Kids Be Kids by Jennifer Caldwell

Let kids be kids; just let them be
Princesses, pirates; let the bath be the sea!

Let them stare at the sky and find animals in the clouds.
Let them dance in the rain and sing out loud.

Let them dream really big and wish upon a star.
Let them feel the wind in their hair from the window of a car.

Smell their dandelion bouquet like it’s your favourite flower,
For they will grow up in what seems like just an hour.

Tell them bedtime stories each and every night.
Let them sleep in the middle when they awake with fright.

Shield them from evil and keep them from danger,
But teach them of acts of kindness for complete strangers.

Don’t hurry them, overschedule them, and make them feel lost,
For if this happens it will be you who will pay the cost!

Let them build castles, do cartwheels, and find shells in the sand.
If they need a little help, then please give them a hand!

Let them walk barefoot and the grass tickle their feet,
For it’s the small things in life that will make them feel complete!

Let them make couch cushion forts and sleep in a tent,
For this is the way childhood was meant to be spent!

Let them bring you breakfast in bed, let them burn your toast.
Someday it will be times like this you will miss the most.

Teach them how to serve others and be a good friend.
If you teach all these things, their love will have no end.

Teach them in life, not everyone will win.
And when they lose they need to accept with a grin.

It’s not about the money you have and the things you have bought.
Life is all about lessons that parents have taught!

So let kids be kids, just let them be.
And our world will be a better place for you and for me!

***