May 15, 2018 (Tuesday)
Define “friend.”
Merriam-Webster’s short definition: “one attached to another by affection or esteem.”
Basically, it seems, true friendship is “love.” If so, then Roy Croft’s poem, published in 1936 under the title, “Love,” describes genuine friendship:
I love you
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am when I am with you.
I love you,
Not only for what you have made of yourself,
But for what you are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me that you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand into my heaped-up heart
And passing over all the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked quite far enough to find.
I love you
Because you are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life not a tavern but a Temple,
Out of the works of my every day not a reproach but a song.
I love you
Because you have done more than any creed could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch, without a word, without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what being a friend means, after all.