Poetry makes Beautiful Sound

I suspect "I love you" sounds beautiful in any language when it is whispered by a lover with real passion and feeling. I imagine the phrase transcends language.

Beautiful poetry read with passion and true feeling should be toe-curling,so often isn't; it should hit home like Maria Callas singing Casta diva.


Here is Khalil Gibran on love from The Prophet; the voice may be a bit sugary but you don't need to understand a single word of the portugese version below to know that the poetry is beautiful.


When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the wind lays waste the garden.

For, just as love crowns you
so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth
so is he for your fall.
Even as he ascends to your height
and caresses your tenderest branches
that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots
and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are malleable;
Then he assigns you to his sacred fire,
that you may become sacred bread
for God's sacred feast.

Love

Recently I’ve been thinking of the love poems I won’t be writing. But I do find my ‘would be’ words in the writings of others. When it comes to love, it’s hard to beat Kahlil Gibran.

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation”

“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were”

“Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms”

“And think not you can guide the course of love. For love, if it finds you worthy, shall guide your course.”

On the other hand there’s the love guru, Woody Allen, who came up with this,

“I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox”

For poignancy: “I miss you a little, I guess you could say, a little too much, a little to often, and a little more each day.”

I don’t know who said that, but I know.