Love Is ... ... ... ...
LOVE Is … … … …
There is no contrivance here, no composing. I wrote the first line ~ Love is learning to let go of a relationship ~ and every line followed, naturally, a beating heart, in step with the Universe.
When I’m out walking, whether it be the supermarket, or the city centre or on the hills, I meet a lot of people, and all manner of breeds of dog, as well as horses, and it’s good to stand and chat to the horses and take me back to those wonderful days in the saddle; not to forget the cattle and sheep.
All of us experience this in one way or another.
All of us experience, too, many people of all ages, all shapes and sizes, some who walk as close to the wall as they can, and yet their eyes are alight. And I keep in mind that principle from thousands of years ago:
I see the heart not the outward appearance.
Yes. There are people in this world who bring terror. We know who they are.
Let us safeguard all, as well as the stranger within our gate.
Easier said than done.
These are the most dangerous times now since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the end of the Second World War in 1945. Do not think that all of that cannot happen again. There are people jostling for the highest positions of power who know full well that should they be given the power for which they crave, that they are fully cognisant that they will instigate violence and death internationally.
We will be at war with Russia by 2030. They are revealing their millennia characteristic… continentalist.
In blunt term and even more bluntly demonistrated at 3am Thursday 24 February 2022:
“I like your land and your property. I want what is yours. And I am going to take it.
And I will thieve, kill and destroy to have my way.”
double-decker
…something of a double-decker bus title, you know? …that line that catches your eye
as the bus hurtles by
and you can’t get that line
out of your head
for the rest of the day.
LOVE Is …
Love is learning to let go of a relationship
Love is unconditional – no payment due in return
Love is the sound of your best mate returning home and hearing
the kitbag thrown on the hall mat,
his whistle and sigh of relief at arriving back,
his laughter, giggle and rolling of the eyes
Love is watching with joy and anguish the arrivals and departure lounges
at harbours and airports, railway stations and coach parks
Love is walking the beach with only your mate’s company in your mind’s eye
Love is holding a hand as life slips slowly away
…holding a hand
I chose this image deliberately.
Here is life, it juxtaposes that heart-rending line.
Here, neither is slipping slowly away,
and tomorrow is a new day.
Love is standing aside.
Love is being there when required
but quietly absenting oneself
when presence would make your mate uncomfortable
or put him or his friends and girlfriends under pressure.
Love is trying with all your might to see the other point of view.
Love is being able to express yourself physically without fear
of retribution, offence, lock-up or persecution
Love is refusing to condemn, whatever the circumstances.
Love is wanting the best for your mate and your friends, and
being willing to sacrifice to enable them to achieve.
Love is that first glimpse between a new-born baby and Mum
Love is holding on to Dad tightly.
Love is being able to laugh at oneself to thereby ease a burden
or stress for others.
Love is to be able to kiss with genuine affection,
and without sexual connotation.
Love is to refrain from even attempting to kiss, if it would offend.
Love is to kiss, and be passionate, and life-giving.
Love is without prejudice or indictment.
Love is in the smile, in the grief, in the moment, in the hurried exchanges.
Love is being able to hold on to one’s sisters with all your
might.
Love stretches across the oceans.
Love is waking and feeling the warmth of your mate next to you.
Love is agreeing not to go all the way if the other does not
desire it even though you do.
Love is in the tissue and fibre of every moment of the day.
Love is in the sound of the playground full of children.
Love is in Grandma’s voice.
Love is Mum’s smile that beams a million unspoken words,
and eyes that can write a book in the flash of an instant.
Love is in the music that we love to listen to
as it brings to mind
the people that mean the most to us,
both near and far,
in this country and in far distant lands …
… memories of friends
who have suddenly walked out of our lives
without comment or contact,
so that we do not even know how
ever again to speak with them,
or hold them,
or love them.
Love is being able to hang on to those memories though,
and not get upset;
but to rejoice that we had them for a time,
and at least we have and own these memories
that will become more
priceless and precious as the years unfold …
memories that not even the guards can take away
as we sit alone in the cell.
Love is a nephew’s first tentative steps …
Love is in a nephew’s first attempts at worldly advice two
decades later … …
Love is in a nephew’s face ~ beaming
as he walks the aisle with his Bride … … …
Love is that mad dash to hospital in the early hours
when your best mate is on the brink of death
because of an horrendous attempt to end it all.
Love is in the embrace.
Love is hearing your sister walk into the Intensive Care Unit
and seeing the smile for which she is famous …
Love is genuine when it is with compassion
and without restriction.
Love is your friend’s voice on the other end of the line
~ the unexpected text message … and …
that unexpected longhand letter
that drops through the letter box
on a Saturday morn and suddenly,
despite the weather, the weekend is fantastic!
Love is in those priceless salutations with all my love …
with love and positive vibes …
Love is in that joyous moment when against all the odds,
the mediator has succeeded in bringing siblings back together,
Love is when siblings reconnect without a mediator and
when each quietly nods approval to that unspoken proverb
Let bygones be bygones. Life is too short.
Love is that excruciating feeling
that crushing desire
to intrude into your best mate’s life
but somehow against all the odds
managing to restrain from doing so,
and that thrill
at hearing of your mate’s accomplishments.
Love is in ordinary acts of unsolicited friendship
in the street,
at the gym,
on the train,
on board ship,
at the garage,
in the air
– when you’ve dropped something
and it’s given back to you
and, suddenly, its value has increased a thousandfold.
Love is the joy of seeing family accept your friends unconditionally!
Love is gently touching the rudder.
Love is giving encouragement and refusing to knock people down.
Love is turning a blind eye regardless of what religious pundits say!
Love is turning a blind eye precisely because of what religious pundits say!
Love is learning to accept age and decline with dignity.
Love is refusing to believe that GOD
does not have a personal plan
specifically designed
with only you in Mind.
Love is sharing those moments of terrible sorrow
when all you and your mate want to do
is to hold onto each other and cry your eyes out.
Love is patient, and kind, and does not question or probe.
Love gives and does not take conditionally.
Love is gentle.
Love sees the best in a person, and ignores the faults.
Love is the light of the world,
and when that light is extinguished
we cannot survive.
Love triumphs over all.
Love defeats adversity.
Love hates evil.
True love redresses a person’s perception
of what is evil in their eyes
because of silly superstitions
and outdated, irrelevant theology.
Love does not discriminate,
Love does not persecute,
Love does not marginalize,
Love does not seek to control or manipulate.
Love is sharing space and giving space.
Love is sharing home during a crisis.
Love is in the chatter and in the silence of mates.
Love is not using friends to occupy your time.
Love is going for a coffee with friends,
or going for a drink down the pub.
Love is not feeling bitter or downhearted
when your mate fails to turn up as planned,
or to make that promised call.
Love is thinking about your mate when he’s gone.
Love is planning the best for your mate.
Love is knowing that somehow he’s always there.
Love is receiving a lovely photograph from him
by hand or through the post.
Love is being in love
and keeping that to yourself.
Love is growing distant
to protect a relationship,
and to protect yourself
as a means of self-preservation.
Finis
28 July 2004
All Rights Reserved
LIVERPOOL
© 2024 Ian Bradley Marshall
Author Note
First written 28 July 2004 8.30 pm Liverpool and last aired 3 December 2022
LOVE IS … was first published by Spiderwize UK in September 2009 in the author’s first anthology Idle Thoughts: A Collection of Poetry and Prose
The superb Double Decker Bus Photo is a Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
