Bird Of My Loving

Dear Reader,

A very dear friend of mine, Mary Sheepshanks, poet and author, wrote the poem I am sending to you this week.  We met on the Island of Iona many years ago during a week's retreat from the world. And we have been friends ever since although it is difficult for us to meet because she lives in Scotland, a long way from Oxford.  The theme of the poem is one that has always interested me.  

I think we want to belong to someone without being overprotected by them.  We want to feel free to go wherever we want to with their blessing and so to return to them, refreshed, with a happy and loving heart.  There is a moving poem by Richard Lovelace (1618-58)  writing from prison which says in the first line of the poem:  Stone walls do not a prison make/nor iron bars a cage.  He says if he has freedom in his love, then his soul is free.  In this very technical and practical age we tend to forget about our souls - what are they after all?  But my soul plays a large part in my life and I take heed to what it tells me.

                                                                        *

The Bird of my Loving

To all the air I vainly cried:
"This octopus possession strangles me.
Can't I be loved and love
And still be free?"
But no one heard or listened
None replied.
Until upon the green horizon of my view
You came to stand.
The bird of all my loving flew to you.
You held it for a moment
In your hand,
Then opening up our fingers
To the sky you said:
"Our love is liberty.
feel free to fly
But know that I am true."
Because you never tried
To pinion it
The bird of  all my loving
Stays with you.

                                                                        *

With very best wishes, Patricia