A Lifetime of Love and Other Poems

By DON MIRABEL

This volume of "lifetime" poems traces the awakening and development of love in one man's journey of fifty-eight years through married life. Now eighty years old, he is still discovering how love evolves with age and is attempting to capture each new revelation and process it through his unique poetic filter. He is a devotee of the sonnet form and you will find that the majority of his poems are sonnets written in every standard rhyme sequence. In several instances, he even experiments with unusual rhyme schemes. In the second part of the book ("Other Poems"), the author explores other aspects of the human condition. Where he feels it necessary to clarify the subject of a poem or explain its origin, he provides an explanatory preface or footnote.

This book is Mr. Mirabel's debut anthology although he has been urged by family and friends for many years to publish his poetry. His reason for finally succumbing to the pressure: "It would be nice to be discovered while I am still alive and able to be aware of it rather than after I'm gone and never to know it."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Feb 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781426958328

DON MIRABEL

Don Mirabel has been expressing himself in poetry all his life. Despite the urging of family and friends, he has, until now, resisted publication because he has felt that he could not compare with the masters of English poetry. Age, however, has taught him that perfection is a goal to which one aspires but few, if any, ever reach. He is no longer wary of the judgment of others but content to know that family and friends appreciate his poems. Mr. Mirabel is Phi Beta Kappa and a magna cum laude graduate. Retired since the beginning of this century, he has been an advertising copywriter, a public relations representative, and a management consultant. His favorite sport is swimming; his favorite hobby is crossword puzzles (solving, not creating, them). On October 17, 2011, he and his wife (the inspiration for his love poems) celebrated their fifty-eight years of marriage. He has three grown children and eight grandchildren and lives in Long Island, New York.

Book preview

Contents

Love

5 YEARS

OF AGE AND LOVE

10/17/01 & 2/14/02

October 17, 2002

OUR FIFTIETH

53 YEARS

FEBRUARY 14, 2007

HAPPY 77th, CYNTHIA

55 YEARS

HALLOWE’EN

ON SUBMITTING A POEM OF MINE TO

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING MAGAZINE

PITY THE PLANNER

FROM HIS COY MISTRESS

A WEIGHT WATCHER’S HUSBAND’S LAMENT

To Bonnie at Sixteen

Susan’s Graduation Poem

SUSAN, AT THE MID-POINT

FROM BIRTH TO FIFTY

EVAN’S BAR MITZVAH POEM

TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

Jennifer at Seventeen

FOR ASHLEY AT 21

A FUNNY LETTER

A MATTER OF VALUES

Friendship

HE IS THERE!

SHAKESPEARE OUT OF STEP

ON REACHING FIFTY

ON REACHING 70

AT 75

DON, AT 78

FOR MY BROTHER AT 80

TRIBUTE TO THE BACO BOYS

FREEING MONA LISA

ON PUTTING MY COLLIE TO SLEEP

9/11/2008

FORECLOSURE

PORTRAIT OF RACHEL

POSTHUMOUS

To Cynthia, my wife of 58 years, who is

the source of inspiration for my love poems…

And to our children, Bonnie, Susan and Evan

and our grandchildren, Michelle, Jennifer, Ashley, Beth, Stacy, Michael, Easton, and Brandon, with all of whom I share the

love so generously engendered

by my wife.

Love

When angry at the world, welled-up, dismayed,

I gather to myself the bitterness

And glare like a sportsman for his game misplayed,

Scornful of myself and to others pitiless.

Wondering: where is the world of ideals fulfilled?

When will the works of my heart break forth and succeed?

Tripped by the hurdles, I lie hurt and weak-willed;

I touch my heart and feel it ache and bleed.

Yet, when despair has left my spirit dying,

There grows a sweetness, undefined though sad,

As love responds to my internal crying,

Directs my heart to hope and makes me glad.

And then I know that happiness relies

On love to give it meaning—or it dies.

January, 1953

Toward every life a sea of others flows,

As calm as sleep or tossing to the clouds;

Carrying in its stream the minds of those

Who fear to sink or cannot top the crowds.

Unless like mountains we sit upon its shore,

Apart, but lonely when we look away,

We all disrobe for the touch of the surging whore

And virgin souls forever rue the day.

I might have maddened with a sensitive heart,

And still I might at the maddening sea,

Except for the island you’ve helped me to chart

To find your sweet love alongside of me.

No matter how violently the waves may rise,

I’ll turn away gently to look in your eyes.

April, 1953

Let us not remark of love, It is a sweet and constant thing,

Like roses never dying in an unexpired spring.

If things are ever-present, it is then they are ignored

And cold, cold fact will leave then undiscovered, unadored.

No, the rose would not be half so loved if it were always seen,

And I could not love half so much if my love were serene.

July, 1953

Where now is the silence of my love

That, at every touch, at every turn

Proclaims itself?

Where now the boy who said not aloud

I love you,

But loved you none-the-less?

Who is this whose eyes are bright?

And, where, oh where

The silence of his love?

Ah, when tranquilly I courted ,

My love was wont to gather up

And open in your hands.

Now silence holds the written word:

The poem has come alive.

November, 1953

Tender me no comfort when I dwell

On failure’s sharp edge. Offer me no balm

Of silent kiss nor summon words to tell me

How your love is answer to my calmlessness.

Let not the strength of love be uttered softly—

Oh, sympathy you are no friend to understanding;

You perpetuate sadness; failure scoffs you

And pride is anguished patently in your hands.

No! While life and passion are yet ours,

What is failure but an aimless state dispelled

By love’s sweet laughter? Sound it first;

I’ve not the will to break, alone, the spirit that compels me.

Bring such power to your love, my dear,

And never ever console nor share my fear.

December, 1953

Do I walk on two left feet

With a shield upon each eye?

Do my fingers turn to thumbs

On everything they try?

Do I take the hardest path

That always has no end?

Do I always talk too much

To one who is no friend?

Is there nothing that I do

That doesn’t go astray?

Is every night the restless end

Of another hard-luck day?

Or do I make too much of things

And take too much to heart?

Are they really trifles all

And I not very smart?

Is it true that little things

Hurt me most of all?

And blind me to the greater ones

That maximize a fall?

Well, the little things will always hurt

And luck may fail me, too;

But something luck can never touch

Is the love I have for you.

April, 1954

Why do I love you? Rose is more beautiful.

The eye delights in her and proud is he who weds her.

Madeline is possessed of wit that I admire

And am lured to seek. Diane has art in every fingertip,

Which saddens me to behold, I am so artless.

Delia dances like a breath of Spring

And lifts the nimble spirit within my heart.

But I love you and I can tell you why:

I feel no pride in qualities greater than