The Borrowers OR Human Nature, a Mind of its Own

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Today's poem first appeared on my gay-interest blog  in 2013.

While feedback suggests relatively few reader dip into both blogs, I would suggest that human nature is such that there are closer parallels  between them than some of us might care to concede.  Love, though, is above all that and male (and female) bonding is - as it has always been, and always will be - a fact of life. Yes, there are certain lines drawn in sand - just as there have always been and always will be; whether or not close friends choose to cross them is - yes, as it has always been and always will be, down to human nature. 

I was in love with a close friend for a long time. He is gay too, but has never felt the same way. Even so, he has always loved me as a friend and I’ve had to be content with that.

In time, I learned how to let passion go and settled down to enjoy a platonic love we lend and borrow by way of supporting each other all the time.

THE BORROWERS or HUMAN NATURE, A MIND OF ITS OWN

You lay your head on 

my shoulder, its presence there

stirring such feelings in me 

I thought, long gone, no part of me again,

but I was wrong;

my heart bursts into song, if sadly

 for such love cannot be

as I would wish but must settle 

for - what, exactly? 

Not less or (ever) second best,

but first among equals 

where friends touch base with Plato,

no need for words

You are a treasure my heart 

will prize above all else, be glad 

for each time I see your eyes

 smiling into mine or tears even for waves 

of hurt rising like a flood 

in you while I can but do my best 

with mere words to aid, 

inspire, reassure, lend a shoulder 

to trust, an arm to lean upon, 

embrace you as friend to friend, 

longing to hold and kiss you, 

yet unwilling to risk more (far, far more)

than I could bear to lose

True, your love comes not 

as I would dearly have it, yet no less

truly beautiful for that,

nor let it ever be still, this passion in me, 

but forever grow, 

lending you to me and me to you 

in ways this body dare not 

even hope to know ... 

where wishful thinking asks questions 

of history’s blurring sight 

for watching antics of a heart 

deserving more than its slow-fast beatings

here, on my shoulder

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2020

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]