Love…  No
(for L)

Love… no, for this that word won’t do,

alike too wide and too confined—

the incandescent one in two,

the kindness that we owe mankind.

Wider than that, warmer than this

the word I want, the feeling is

affection, which need not arise

from beauty, charm or cleverness,

which does not sense the boundaries

of sex or age-group, class or race—

the single greatest human good,

sign of our brother-and-sisterhood.