What Is It?

What Is It?
Copyright 2008 Norman Dean Weibel

Sometimes it’s a gradual slowly growing thing that sneaks
Below the surface and fools everyone.
They call it liking; it’s just friendship, nothing more.
It may take weeks, months, years or decades,
But when it’s ready there’s unsettling truth in store.

Sometimes it’s so natural we think it’s always been something
we’ve felt toward all the members
of our group whether we call it a family, a clan
or our brothers and sisters; the ones
we hold to be our own be we woman or man.

Sometimes it smashes us so suddenly it quite
knocks for a loop; makes our knees wobbly
and causes to wonder if without it life can be.
The other thing we know about it always to be true
is of its of its tender encompassment we don’t want free.

Even in its mildest least urgent manifestation
It changes both our lives and those of those around us.
With no known exception, while it lasts in our lives
we are better for it; our lives much more full.
Love it is, of course, binding all, even husbands and wives.