The Poetry of Love

At thirteen, I think it was, I was reading love poetry. At seventeen, love-lorn often, I was writing it – very badly, full of inconsolable sighs and lamentation, but at least I was trying. And all my life since I have made a special point of looking for books of love poetry and collecting them. The search is not over and the best love poems please me as much as when I was young, though now in a more contemplative way.

Look at one poem discovered which I think wonderful as I remember long ago at a dance seeing two young people obviously newly and ecstatically enraptured with each other perform for each other with utmost grace. It is a poem by C.K. Williams.