maybe my favorite Auden poem

The More Loving One, by W. H. Auden Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me. Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day. Were all stars to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky And feel its total dark sublime, Though this might take me a little time.

we started off pure gold

We started off pure gold, then people began polluting us when we were too young to fight back. If a jeweler now examined you he might exclaim, "What happened to you? You turned into pyrite!" Don't be worried by such a candid remark; don't let it depress you for there is a way to reverse this process. Everything I write gives practical clues, clues, clues! poem by Rumi

a Smurfette puzzle

Once my daughter, age two, begged me to let her buy a blue Smurfette puzzle for her father for xmas. we were in the midst of an acrimonious custody battle. I tried to talk her out of that puzzle because I knew my husband, knew he would think I had not wanted to buy him a real gift. Sure enough, he voiced anger, altho only to me, for giving him such a stupid gift. I felt sorry for him that he could not see that she had bought him something she thought was very wonderful, that she had chosen a very special gift for him. Her favorite doll at the time was the blue Smurfette, which her daddy gave her, and she had with her at all times. I never would have bought her a doll based on a cartoon but I was not going to deny her that Smurfette because it came from her dad. The love connection between her Smurfette doll and that Smurfette puzzle was obvious to me. He grumbled about the puzzle repeatedly.  He didn't get that it was chosen in love.  He thought I had coached her to give him a crappy Christmas gift.She thought she had given him a very special gift, reasoning he must love Smurfette since he gave her Smurfette.  Men.