Do you believe in friendship at first sight? It's a literary exaggeration, of course, but I often find that I know within a few minutes of meeting someone whether I'll like them or not. I've always found this interesting, as to me one of the primary requirements for deep friendship is some sort of history. Because my old friends and I have come down through so many years together, we are well versed in the poetry of each others' thoughts; we need not guess at moods and humours yet unfathomed; we know one another.
But the mere application of time in itself is not a guarantor of friendship. Those whom we have come to call friends, who have followed in our hearts despite time and distance and tribulation, have not merely been chosen by some chance whim of fate: we, rather, have made a conscious or unconscious decision to befriend them. How and why perhaps is not for us to say, but certainly it is no base instinct, no simple thought that binds us to our friends.
To read the writings of another, distanced even by many miles or years, can evoke feelings of friendship, can it not? It takes longer for our hearts to judge a friend this way, of course, for there is so much less in words than in movement and laughter, tears and silence. We grasp at ideologies and musings, hints at the deeper soul behind the writing. But there grows a certainty of purpose in friendship clearer, perhaps, and stronger, when it is bound together by the leaven of words. But perhaps it is hard for whom cannot grasp an arm in fellowship, or share a smile or drink.
To each his own, in friendship as in thought. Though I know you years or moments, though I have thrown with you or never set mine eyes upon your face, my friends at least I know. Do they know me? You who have seen me laugh, and loved me as I am; you who have seen me weep, in darkness and in light; you who have bled with me, and shared my sweat beneath the sun; you who have read my poems and my words, I say you are my own.
But the mere application of time in itself is not a guarantor of friendship. Those whom we have come to call friends, who have followed in our hearts despite time and distance and tribulation, have not merely been chosen by some chance whim of fate: we, rather, have made a conscious or unconscious decision to befriend them. How and why perhaps is not for us to say, but certainly it is no base instinct, no simple thought that binds us to our friends.
To read the writings of another, distanced even by many miles or years, can evoke feelings of friendship, can it not? It takes longer for our hearts to judge a friend this way, of course, for there is so much less in words than in movement and laughter, tears and silence. We grasp at ideologies and musings, hints at the deeper soul behind the writing. But there grows a certainty of purpose in friendship clearer, perhaps, and stronger, when it is bound together by the leaven of words. But perhaps it is hard for whom cannot grasp an arm in fellowship, or share a smile or drink.
To each his own, in friendship as in thought. Though I know you years or moments, though I have thrown with you or never set mine eyes upon your face, my friends at least I know. Do they know me? You who have seen me laugh, and loved me as I am; you who have seen me weep, in darkness and in light; you who have bled with me, and shared my sweat beneath the sun; you who have read my poems and my words, I say you are my own.
No comments:
Post a Comment