Two by J.V. Cunningham

Below are two poems by the late J.V. Cunningham. The first does a masterful job of laying what is perfect love. So much is written on the feelings of love and not of the care actually given to the other, as Cunningham puts it: "I care for you more/ Than my feeling for you." The second illustrates that love is a choice and that it carries a couple through their inevitable "ills" through loyalty, patience, respect, and manners. And, of course, it takes two.

(9)

Innocent to innocent,
One asked, What is perfect love?
Not knowing it is not love,
Which is imperfect–some kind
Of love or other, some kind
Of interchange with wanting,
There when all else is wanting,
Something by which we make do.

So impaired, uninnocent,
If I love you–as I do–
To the very perfection
Of perfect imperfection,
It’s that I care more for you
Than for my feeling for you.


Choice

Allegiance is assigned
Forever when the mind
Chooses and stamps the will.
Thus, I must love you still
Through good and ill.

But though we cannot part
We may retract the heart
And build such privacies
As self-regard agrees
Conduce to ease.

So manners will repair
The ravage of despair
Which generous love invites,
Preferring quiet nights
To vain delights.”