Martin Robertson

Now and Then

[Yes, you’re right]

Yes, you’re right.  Misunderstandings may

sometimes (we’re human) drift our way

but surely we shall never let them build

into a barrier.

We know too well how kindness may be killed

by carelessness.  Have learned from that to care.

A central part of our love’s nature (more,

don’t you think? than of most loves) is the way

it’s rooted in a deep determination

never to hurt

the other—a thing our loving natures learned

each in an earlier day,

something which colours them through.

We feel such thankfulness

each to other and to

chance or fate or God or what we choose

to call it, for being thus unforehopedly blest

in the late radiance of

this encompassing untroubled love,

I don’t see how we ever could

renege on such suffusing gratitude.