We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

11.9.22

The Love of My Life

The few to whom I tell our story think you must have been the love of my life. I don’t like to think in those terms. I have also loved others well. How could I put you above my dear Andrew, my third and last husband, my happiest marriage? He was such a dear, we were so close, best friends as well as lovers.


But then, I could not say I loved him more than you – even though no loves could have been more different.


You are certainly one of the loves of my life! Though I won’t say I loved you the most, neither could I truthfully say that I ever loved anyone more.


May you rest in peace! (May all my dear, dead loves rest in peace.)


an old lady

many years later

I think of you

whenever love is mentioned –

always that leap of my heart 



The title was a prompt at the Tanka Poets On Site group on facebook.



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