That I Should Love Thee

I started this poem in high school. 

At that point,  it was" That I should love thee doth come as no surprise/Thine eyes do..."  Probably wrote this after reading Shakespeare in English class. 

That's as far as I got for many, many years.

Things change.  A lot of life in the intervening years, particularly the last few.

I finished it recently.  I now understand why these lines stayed  with me through the decades, and why I was unable to complete it earlier in my own space-time continuum.

That I should love you comes as no surprise

Your eyes

Do shine to shame the stars and moon

Your lips

Your sweet, soft lips,

Do beckon me to heaven here on earth.

Your voice caresses as surely

as softly

as though it were your fingertips

How can I not love you? 

You are all that is good and strong and sweet in my world.

Through your eyes, I have seen the very best of me -

The me – the idea of me -  that you have loved these many years.

5 things

You know that exercise...write 5 things For which are thankful. I started that yesterday.  The usual first two things: Health. Job. And then I stopped.

I'm kind of ashamed to even write this. But I feel I need to.

I put the exercise aside until I saw this post from Rob-Brezsnys Free Will Astrology on Facebook.

You're not living in the rattled mass of chaos that is Iraq or Sudan or the Congo. You don't have to walk five miles a day with a jug on your head to fetch the water you need. And you're not so bereft of food that you have to resort to eating worms and tree bark. So how bad could your problems be? 

One of the best things you might do to start fixing your life's small glitches is to feel waves of appreciation for how many resources you have and how lucky you are. Another good thing would be to aggressively take your worried attention off yourself and turn your mind toward people who could benefit from your help. As you carry out those assignments, your dilemmas may begin to look different to you.

I was ashamed.

Running water. Electricity. Toilets. Clothes. Shoes. Food. All the things I take for granted to such an extent that I don't even consider them when I count my blessings.

I saw a story on the news tonight about a Cub Scout pack up the road in Georgetown that raised money to send the Cub Scouts in West, Texas to scout camp this summer. 

What have I done for anyone lately? I mean, outside of the requirements of my jobs. I can't think of anything. That's a sad commentary.