HOW IT GROWS

When you sing, Darling Beauty,

You make my heart flutter and weep. You are so

innocent and I feel so like a criminal most

times to eagerly look to the moment when I can

gasp you in my arms as my own true lover . . . the inner

sanctuary of my heart is where I keep these

scared threads of hope . . . locked up as

they are so as not to hinder or disturb the reality of

my growing passions for you.

Yes, I am but a man, only a man, yes--still yet,

something grand but naughty swells in me each time your

lovely memory invades my conscience.. It is none your

fault but mine that I am so passionate for

you so often. By habit or by choice I cannot

say, but here, each morning I dress it to the

music of small fine birds chirping even now

there sweetly below my windows, still yet, each

night, when darkness descends--boldly, heavily

to cover the ground, the sky, everything--so too

does your memory comes to me, to lie unclothed in

the warmth of my thick new blankets--and I comfort

it--her, making love to you in my sleep, the very

dreams themselves spilling out upon my pillows . . .

in words of hope and satisfaction--a watering plant

taking root, and grows under the light of a passionate sun.