This My Love Poem

[PrinceMyshkin]

To your poems, dear friend!
You know how, when one falls in love
most deeply with someone,
one might fantasize for a time
what it would be like to be her,
to be inside the thought and soul
of all that exterior beauty.
And I have thought, what would it be like
to write a firefangled poem?

But I knew it would end up
a crude pastiche, a farrago!
My metaphors would be just
metaphors, my symbols
symbols (bloody things that cheat us
every time of the raw and sometimes stinking
pith of reality), but you, most excellent dude,
you don’t truck much with metaphors.

If you choose to speak of fireflies
or hungry, efflorescent stars,
the dolia of blossoms gone to light,
a lioness, Queen Anne's Lace or
crookneck squash, you just reach out
for the actual thing and stick it,
living, on the page!

[firefangled]

To your poems, dear friend!
You know how, when one falls in love
most deeply with someone,
one might fantasize for a time
what it would be like to be her,
to be inside the thought and soul
of all that exterior beauty.
And I have thought, what would it be like
to write a firefangled poem?

But I knew it would end up
a crude pastiche, a farrago!
My metaphors would be just
metaphors, my symbols
symbols (bloody things that cheat us
every time of the raw and sometimes stinking
pith of reality), but you, most excellent dude,
you don’t truck much with metaphors.

If you choose to speak of fireflies
or hungry, efflorescent stars,
the dolia of blossoms gone to light,
a lioness, Queen Anne's Lace or
crookneck squash, you just reach out
for the actual thing and stick it,
living, on the page!

My friend, I don't know what to say at the moment. If this were about anyone, it would be what it is - a beautifully written testament to your feelings for the person and their work. That it speaks of me is too humbling for me to say anything but my appreciation for your talent as well and the encouragement you give to me and everyone in this forum.