How Beautiful the Beloved. Gregory Orr

      

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       for Trisha

      Contents

        Title Page

        Note to Reader

       PART ONE

      1  If to say it once

      2  The Book said we were mortal

      3  How we embraced the beloved

      4  And when the beloved

      5  How beautiful the beloved

      6  Balanced on the edge

      7  Si je t’aime, prends garde à toi

      8  Where are you standing

      9  Don’t bother to ask

      10  Not many of them, it’s true

      11  A thousand years ago

      12  Praxilla, almost-forgotten

      13  Snow on the mountain

      14  Death of the body

      15  Occult power of the alphabet

      16  Grief will come to you

      17  When we were young

      18  We could say No to love

      19  Who needs another earth

      20  Reading the world

      21  Praising all creation...

       PART TWO

      1  All those years

      2  That T-shirt...

      3  Without a word of protest

      4  Autumn again. The leaves

      5  That single line: a rope

      6  When my gaze strays

      7  Human heart

      8  To learn by heart...

      9  Your Yes against all those

      10  Space we make

      11  Words, of course, but

      12  Surrender everything...

      13  Loss and loss and more

      14  What death shatters

      15  Steeling your heart

      16  Lingering over it

      17  Childhood swimming hole

      18  Letting go, when all you want...

       PART THREE

      1  The hero who cuts a swath

      2  Young, we waved flags

      3  Doesn’t the soldier serve

      4  The terror and thrill

      5  Who says there’s nothing...

      6  Voice of the beloved

      7  Has the moon been up there

      8  Reciprocity—that’s where

      9  Her eye and my “I”

      10  Those pastel, candy hearts

      11  When I was young I wanted

      12  What was it the beloved

      13  Squander it all

      14  Ask the tree or the house

      15  More stores being built

      16  Lots of sorrow...

       PART FOUR

      1  “Surprise me,” the beloved said

      2  High Virginia summer

      3  Sudden buildup

      4  When the beloved appears

      5  We poets are always

      6  So many were given only

      7  When the beloved has the blues

      8  According to the Big Bopper

      9  Beloved, with your hair

      10  Little fish of feeling...

      11  The poet might wish

      12  Every day brings us

      13  Making light of the beloved

      14  Blossoms scattered in the street

      15  Fate not just a pair of scissors

      16  Being being nothing

      17  To open the Book

      18  Sometimes the poem

      19  Hoarding your joys and despairs

      20  Weren’t we more than

      21  Nazim Hikmet begins a poem

      22  This is what was bequeathed us

      23  Humble dazzle

      24  Poem that opened you

        About the Author

        Books by Gregory Orr

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