My message on love

Living a life filled with LOVE can motivate us as LOVE can enhance human energy bringing success, happiness and tranquility. So we should open the room in our hearts, let the LOVE flow in, grasp the opportunity to learn the skills of LOVE to make the power of LOVE within our heart to grow and flow.

LOVE can change our lives and can be a force to make us move, to make us act upon our needs, but to heave the feeling of LOVE is not that easy, and most of the time LOVE is just said in actions. According to the great Persian Sufi Poet, Rumi (1207-1273), LOVE is the most difficult concept to define, "My pen splinters when I write LOVE.”

LOVE can give us the power to touch the human hearts; it blooms without season or reason as true LOVE is always presence and it grows in the midst of sorrow or joy, tears or happiness. Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese born American philosophical essayist, novelist and poet once said: “LOVE is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of the seasons.”

Don’t wait to be loved, LOVE our own selves and pour out the LOVE within ourselves. Rumi said, “Your task is not to seek for LOVE, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

LOVE has no boundaries as LOVE is boundless. Rumi said: "This is LOVE: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet."

True love flows naturally through spontaneous expression embroidered with warmth, comfort, serenity, truth and beauty, in tears and joy in mutual sharing, giving more that expecting, sharing more that receiving, and most of all loving for the sake of God as it is the way of opening up the power of love within our hearts…………………..

With love,

Roses, roses, roses......

Below are my thoughts and reflections regarding the theme of

“The Sick Rose” by William Blake and “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns.

The Sick Rose By William Blake

O Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm

That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

A Red Red Rose by Robert Burns

O my Luve's like a red, red rose

That's newly sprung in June;

O my Luve's like the melodie

That's sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a' the seas gang dry:

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi' the sun;

I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,

And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my Luve,

Tho' it ware ten thousand mile.

In poetry the theme is the controlling idea of the whole poetry. The themes reveal the message or the meaning of the whole poetry. From my reflection both of the poems reveal the theme through the title. However the theme of the poems differs in its meaning.

The theme of the poem “The Sick Rose” by William Blake is about of a rose that has reached the end of its lifespan in the advent of the creeping winter. A rose usually symbolizes love, beauty and romance, but in this poem rose is sick reflects the damaged, hurt and destruction. The rose which is personified as an ailing woman was damaged by the worm which is personified as the man who has caused the harm to her. It is a poem that reveals the negative attitude of a man towards a woman whom he destroys to satisfy his lust. Where else in the poem “ A red,red Rose” by Robert Burns the theme is about a man who is deeply in love with his lover. The word red is repeated twice stress the great passion he has for his lover. It is a romantic love poem which has a positive attitude of a man towards a woman whom he loves by showing his great passion of love which is growing deeper and deeper each day.

a place for poetry

Poetry is the spontaneous flow of expression conveyed in words which is organized into regular units called stanza to create rhythmical effects or sound patterns in lines. The lines are constructed by the poets into image, rhythm and sound. Sound devices, rhythmical patterns and compression of statements are the characteristics of poetry. Poetry is expressing the thoughts and feelings of a person and conveyed through beautiful, aesthetic expressions in words organized into stanzas which have denotative and connotative meanings.

Poetry can be identified by its form, and the way the poetry is patterned in concept or idea. Knowledge on the different types or categories can help a reader in his work of analysis. Among the types of poetry are epic, free verse, blank verse, ballad, metaphysical, mystical, spiritual, heroic couplet, lyrical ballad, lyric poetry, sonnets and limericks.

The theme of poetry is important as it is a general idea of what the poet is trying to convey to us through his poems and it reflects the poem’s intention in mood and tone. It makes the poetry meaningful when the message is conveyed in beautiful expression.

The expression of the words in the poetry should not be taken literally as poetry has figures of speech which are connotative in meaning. Thus the deeper meaning of words in the poetry needs to be understood to catch the feel and taste of the poetry. Each type of poetry has its own unique elements. Poets use figures of speech such as similes, metaphors, symbols, personifications, synecdoche, metonymies, hyperbole, paradox, anaphora, tautology, onomatopoeia, euphemism, ellipsis, litotes, antithesis, oxymoron, anaphor which are techniques they use to arrange and express the words so that there is life in each poetry that we read.