O Love Is The Crooked Thing

[Posted by reader_iam]

Grace under pressure,*** truth even (because?) it hurts and scares.

***Don't limit yourself to this post. It's the whole series of recent posts to which I want to point you. But if I don't pick an anchor permalink, eventually the immediate inspiration for my linking right now in my own post will be lost. That doesn't mean Melinda's blog isn't inspiring and fearless (in the face of real fear) and awesomely honest and ultimately a thing of (often painful) beauty on an ongoing basis, because it is. As is Amba's.
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I whispered, 'I am too young,'
And then, 'I am old enough';
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
'Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.'
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

Don't know why I feel so strongly that this Yeats poem applies, but I do, I do--so much so that I'm including it even if I can't explain it, even if it seems a little odd, and even to myself.