Gifts Are Not Always Free

Music: Planxty Maggie Browne. By Turlough O'Carolan. Sequenced by Barry Taylor.

Alpha List Love Poems Name Poems About This Site Poems for Free Copyright by Nicholas Gordon

Gifts are not always free. A giver wants to know: Are you enjoying my gift? Burdens can be sources of intense pleasure. Recently, unable to distinguish between burdens and gifts, Indian elephants dragged seventeen tons of teak logs over the Himalayas. Each of us has made his or her own version of this mistake. Love is a gift. Burdens betray themselves by the rattle of their needs. Each of us wants to know: Am I a burden or a gift? Very few understand that to be a gift one must receive more than one gives, Even while burdens come decked out in ribbons and bows. Refusing a gift brings regret, not guilt. Lingering doubts may be referred to a mirror. Yesterday the elephants returned: happy, sweaty, and a good deal wiser.