Monday 12 July 2010

Happy Birthday, Stephanie!


Today happens to be the twenty-seventh birthday of one of my dearest and closest friends, Stephanie J.K.S.P. A good bit of what I am I owe to her; for she showed me so much, made me understand so much, taught me so much. She is one of the brightest, most radiant spirits I have ever known; I will always be in her shadow. A very happy birthday, darling Stephanie and I’ll see you very soon. We’ll have a party, you and I, just the two of us.

6 comments:

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  2. Believe me, Adam, we shall. We are Fire and Dynamite together. :-))

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  4. Friendship has replaced love in my life, as it did in the life of one of my favourite poets, Alexander Pope. He wrote about it, I write about it. Like love, its subtle delianations are always somewhat defective. Here is a poem by another favourite poet of mine.


    Law, Like Love. By W. H. Auden.

    Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
    Law is the one
    All gardeners obey
    To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.

    Law is the wisdom of the old,
    The impotent grandfathers feebly scold;
    The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
    Law is the senses of the young.

    Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
    Expounding to an unpriestly people,
    Law is the words in my priestly book,
    Law is my pulpit and my steeple.

    Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
    Speaking clearly and most severely,
    Law is as I've told you before,
    Law is as you know I suppose,
    Law is but let me explain it once more,
    Law is The Law.

    Yet law-abiding scholars write:
    Law is neither wrong nor right,
    Law is only crimes
    Punished by places and by times,
    Law is the clothes men wear
    Anytime, anywhere,
    Law is Good morning and Good night.

    Others say, Law is our Fate;
    Others say, Law is our State;
    Others say, others say
    Law is no more,
    Law has gone away.

    And always the loud angry crowd,
    Very angry and very loud,
    Law is We,
    And always the soft idiot softly Me.

    If we, dear, know we know no more
    Than they about the Law,
    If I no more than you
    Know what we should and should not do
    Except that all agree
    Gladly or miserably
    That the Law is
    And that all know this
    If therefore thinking it absurd
    To identify Law with some other word,
    Unlike so many men
    I cannot say Law is again,

    No more than they can we suppress
    The universal wish to guess
    Or slip out of our own position
    Into an unconcerned condition.
    Although I can at least confine
    Your vanity and mine
    To stating timidly
    A timid similarity,
    We shall boast anyvay:
    Like love I say.

    Like love we don't know where or why,
    Like love we can't compel or fly,
    Like love we often weep,
    Like love we seldom keep.

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