This week’s poem is “Not Love Perhaps” by A.S.J. Tessimond which celebrates the companionship of love, whether that is part of an intimate relationship or a friendship, and expresses the strength we can derive from friendship.

A need, at times, to be together and talk,
And then the finding we can walk
More firmly through dark narrow places,
And meet more easily nightmare faces;
A.S.J. Tessimond (1902—1962)

Poem 260. Not Love Perhaps

This is not Love, perhaps,
Love that lays down its life,
that many waters cannot quench,
nor the floods drown,
But something written in lighter ink,
said in a lower tone, something, perhaps, especially our own.

A need, at times, to be together and talk,
And then the finding we can walk
More firmly through dark narrow places,
And meet more easily nightmare faces;
A need to reach out, sometimes, hand to hand,
And then find Earth less like an alien land;
A need for alliance to defeat
The whisperers at the corner of the street.

A need for inns on roads, islands in seas,
Halts for discoveries to be shared,
Maps checked, notes compared;
A need, at times, of each for each,
Direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech.

This poem isn’t about the kind of love “that lays down its life.” Tessimond writes Love with a capital, suggesting the epic kind of passion “that many waters cannot quench” but he changes tack to talk about a gentler, more unobtrusive affection—“something written in a lighter ink”—something that is unique to each pairing of friends: “something, perhaps, especially our own”.

The second stanza clarifies this feeling: discovering that the company of friends steels us to braving the “dark narrow places” of the world and helps us to stand firm against the “nightmare faces” and “whisperers at the corner of the street” so that the world seems “less like an alien land.” Each clause adds a facet of this feeling: “A need, at times, to be together and talk”, “A need to reach out, sometimes, hand to hand”; and “A need for alliance.” Tessimond is describing a kind of love that isn’t a great romance but is constant and necessary—”A need” is repeated before each facet.

The third stanza adds another idea: that this companiable kind of love is one where we need to share the things we have discovered, the things we know: welcoming inns, charming islands, and other discoveries (we might add the shows and movies we enjoy watching and the music that delights us), and the need for company, for friendship “A need, at times, of each for each”, that runs as deep as our human need for communication “Direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech”.

I like the poem because it isn’t about love in the grandiose sense. It is the kind of love associated with friends and companions, which can grow into a greater love with the right person and the right feeling. I also feel that the middle stanza bears a greater truth today when we are constantly shown an insincere view of the world by many media (both social and mainstream) and the love of friends aids us in navigating the dark narrow places of the Internet and the whisperers at the corner.

Sadly, there are no examples of this poem being performed on YouTube but I found a performance on SoundCloud by the actor Samuel West.

To Be Together and Talk

Poem 260. Not Love Perhaps

Links