The Essential You

How many views of you do I need
to know which special you I love;
and you, how many do you need
to know which one of me? Am I

the gaudy one, the cheery imp who
gleefully pulls faces in the wind?
Perhaps I am the stolid son, glum
but vigilant and full of passive

strength. I’d go to almost any length
to know. Yet when it comes to you
my love emboldens me to say my
views embrace your every face

with equal and intense concern,
I cannot choose between the one
for all combine in sum to make a
special sense of consequence,

an essence – which to me alone
is the essential you.
© 23 August 2007, I.D. Carswell