When Robert Browning penned this poem, he was thinking of his beloved. But, like you, I have accumulated a number of complementary beloved's over the years. I imagine you can juxtapose each of mine with your own:
THE PLACES I LOVE.......
I love the green green grass of my childhood in Austin and Oak Park; shaded under their oaks and elms, I chased baseballs and dreams to somehow arrive where I now stand...I also love the great green expanses of Wrigley Field, for it remains one of the few places in my city where I can still find baseballs and dreams in play....I love the blue-green waters of Lake Michigan as they lap against the shoreline of Loyola University; it is where I strolled between classes to muse about the world and the woman I was soon to join....I love my small, treed backyard which each spring persists in transforming barren white into aromatic green; one sure sign that even while my life grows old, the world always becomes young again in this the month of my relentless birthdays
THE THINGS I LOVE....
I love the foods of God's green earth; they are a daily bounty that arrives at my table from all parts of the world which I like to imagine each had me in mind....I love the hours of sleep which cocoon me every night; they wrap me inside a generous oblivion of black in which I can both rest and travel to my mind's content....I love the sounds of music and the power of theatre; these are excursions into realms beyond the brittle limits of our everyday routines and into the limitless expanses of our borderless imagination....I love the look of words on a white page, whose power to reach the human heart is a power that continues to transform lives and nations; but it is a love laced with fear when I see some of these words shoving weak minds over steep cliffs....I love anything out there which has the capacity to preserve what has been, so that it can be used for what might still be; these are bridges that must never be burned so they can always be crossed
THE PEOPLE I LOVE.....
Charlie Brown once said it immensely well: "I love humanity; it's just people I can't stand"...How right he is, for loving places and things comes easy; loving people calls for work... And yet the work is worth it if you can tally at least a dozen good family and friends by the time you start making lists like these....I love my few truly dear friends; I love my amazingly lovable parents; I love my beautiful striving children; I love the only woman I have ever wanted or needed to love; finally (or is it firstly?) I love my God, for I believe whatever, whoever and wherever, this God is my only assurance that all this has been worth it.
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An ode to life. I really like this one
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