James Tweedie describes love found, yearned for, and lost

I’m a sucker for a good love poem. Apparently, I’m not the only one. Poetry about the subject of love is as old as poetry itself. Some of the most famous poems in literature are about love.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Lord Byron’s “She walks in beauty.” “Endymion” by John Keats. Robert Burns’ red, red rose. William Butler Yeats’ “When You Are Old.” Virtually every poet has written about love. And it’s no wonder. Love may be the emotion, the feeling, the condition, and the presence we experience across languages, culture, histories, and geographies.

As poet James Tweedie demonstrates in his new collection, Love: Found, Yearned For, and Lost, love is a big topic, not only covering a range of conditions and realities but also poetic forms. He organizes his 61 poems into three broad categories: love found, love yearned for, and love lost. Of the 61 formal poems, 33 are sonnets. That’s no surprise. The sonnet, with its 14-line structure and rhyme, seems almost ideally suited to explore love in all its manifestations. (He also uses the villanelle and haiku forms, among others.)

Tweedie writes love and passion; how it begins (explaining how a lube and oil change for his car transformed his life); love and the romance of rivers; infatuation; love and quietness; reciprocal love; and love that lasts. Love is about growing old together. Sometimes it is like ships in the night. It can be betrayed. Love can love its thrill. It can lead sadness behind it. Love lost is like letters left unopened. It can involve tears, and feelings like dust. Its loss can also leave an open question: if we lose love can we find it again? Or as Tweedie writes, “The path we choose shall be the path we keep, / to love again or to forever weep.”

It’s a collection in which it’s not easy to find a favorite poem; there are too many to choose from. But if I had to choose, it might well be this one:

For Love of You

Were I to search the world both far and wide
And chance upon a land of endless bliss—
Eternal life without you at my side—
For love of you I’d trade that world for this.

If I could live a thousand-thousand years
But live those years apart from your embrace,
I’d rather suffer death bathed in your tears
Than live without the joy of seeing your face.

For what is life, though fame and fortune thrive,
If greater treasure be sore cast aside?
For life is dead, and dead though still alive,
When love and all that would be love have died.

If you and love of you were to be lost
To gain the world would not be worth the cost.

Tweedie is a retired Presbyterian pastor who earned degrees in music, humanities, divinity, and ministry. He is the author of numerous books, including novels, short stories, and practical theology, and six collections of poetry. His poems have been published in numerous online and print media. He also composes music, sells his photography, and writes and directs for a local repertory company. He lives in Washington State.

A collection like Love reminds us of what is timeless in poetry. Virtually every other aspect of our lives can and often does change, but love – and the expression of it – endures.

Related:

James Tweedie’s Mostly Sonnets

Photo by Judy Dean, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young.

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