Today's Beautiful Gem: `Ask No Return' by Horace Gregory.

"Ask no return for love that's given
embracing mistress, wife or friend,
ask no return:
on this deep earth or in pale heaven,
awake and spend
hands, lips, and eyes in love,
in darkness burn,
the limbs entwined until the soul ascend.

"Ask no return of seasons gone:
the fire of autumn and the first hour of spring,
the short bough blossoming
through city windows when night's done,
when fears adjourn
backward in memory where all loves end

"in self again, again the inward tree
growing against the heart
and no heart free.
From love that sleeps behind each eye
in double symmetry
ask no return,
even in enmity, look! I shall take your hand;
nor can our limbs disjoin in separate ways again,
walking, even at night on foreign land
through houses open to the wind, through cold and rain,
walking alive, meet, kiss and understand."

Om s'aantih: Peace! - J. K. Mohana Rao

<:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:>285<:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:>