National Poetry Month

I didn't know we were to celebrate poetry, until I read this blog about it at the beginning of the month. I've been enjoying reading her submissions. Go and read them all.

So, today, I decided I'd post a favorite poem of mine. I first read it in high school. I think I was 14 or 15. At that time, I'd experienced a couple of great, and unrequited, passions. I may have kissed one boy up to that point. I'm pretty sure I didn't understand all the ramifications of this piece then. But I've come to understand it now. And I love the poem even more.

Love is Not All

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink,

Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;

Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink

And rise and sink and rise and sink again;

Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath,

Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;

Yet many a man is making friends with death

Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

It well may be that in a difficult hour,

Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,

Or nagged by want past resolution's power,

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,

Or trade the memory of this night for food.

It well may be. I do not think I would.

Edna St. Vincent Millay