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Sunset Love
Posted: 30 March 2007
Word Count: 158
Summary: Only for the romantics amongst you.
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Sunset Love
All that I am
or have ever been
is in me now
The wisdom of my years
the passion of my youth
are embraced
to make me one
in true intimacy
with you.
I have learned
with joy and gratitude
an exhilarating truth
that I can love again
just one more time
and everything I know
everything I am
is given to you now
my sunset love
My sorrows and my joys
My failings recognised
My journey’s lessons learned
Have made me realise
How generous is your love
That sees me as I am
Not how I’d like to be
From my imprisoned self
Your love has set me free
You are my un-guilted joy
beyond ethics beyond sin
you are my evening sun
all my soul shall need
my thrill of life each day
the solace of my sleep
and when we meet again
beyond the sky among the stars
we shall be as one
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Comments by other Members
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 joanie at 18:26 on 01 April 2007
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Lovely, Zettel. I can imagine reading this quietly to a loved one. Perhaps I shall!
joanie
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.JPG) Zettel at 22:39 on 01 April 2007
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Thanks Joannie
I just knew you were a fellow romantic!
regards
Z
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 James Graham at 00:01 on 02 April 2007
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Sometimes it’s worth going with one’s very first impression of a poem. For me, there was something very moving about this poem on first reading. Most of all I think it’s what is contained in the line ‘Just one more time’ - this isn’t first love but last love, and the counterpoint of love and mortality is very poignant. It’s captured too in the title and the line ‘My sunset love’ which is a simple and beautiful phrase. In more general terms, I like to think I can tell when a poem is authentic, when it’s one in which the emotion is not sentimental or worked up, but real.
But I had another very early impression which was more disappointing. I soon began to wish that some individual lines and passages could have been more inventive in their language - could have risen a little more above the commonplace. It’s the third stanza in particular: ‘Aiming for the moon’, ‘Knowing I’ll be gone/ Please God not too soon’, ‘And evermore shall be’, ‘Love shall set you free’. I don’t feel these lines really do justice to the deep feelings of the poem; they don’t seem to be lines that you yourself have created, or that have been formed specifically out of the real feelings of the poem.
In contrast, for me the second stanza is the most successful. It’s not only that the line ‘My sunset love’ achieves what those third-stanza lines don’t achieve, a sense that the poem has risen above the commonplace. This line certainly does achieve that. But the rest of the stanza supports it; there’s a special simplicity, a plainness of language, here; it conveys the feeling of the poem better, and ends perfectly in that last line. You’ve posted some short poetry recently. It might be worth considering whether the second stanza could stand alone.
After Joanie’s comment I feel like an old curmudgeon, one who has forgotten what it means to be a romantic. But I can’t help feeling the poem as it is doesn’t quite do justice to the depth of feeling that clearly underlies it.
James.
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Zettel at 22:54 on 02 April 2007
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James
Thanks. As ever, thought-provoking.
This might be nearer the mark?
My sorrows and my joys
My failings recognised
My journey’s lessons learned
Have made me realise
How generous is your love
That sees me as I am
Not how I’d like to be
From my imprisoned self
Your love has set me free
regards
Z
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James Graham at 13:36 on 03 April 2007
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I like this much better. I hadn't really noticed that the third stanza, unlike the others, wasn't addressed to 'you'. Now it is, and the language is much more direct and genuine.
James.
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