The 101 of How to Praise

(someone you love)

To receive praise is a need and how to praise is an art.

We tend to be so focused on fulfilling our own desires, that we forget that so many of these fulfillments happen because someone else went on a limb for us. Do we always acknowledge? Or do we just move on, unthinkingly? And the irony is that those who support us silently, who give the wind beneath our wings without being asked, are the ones who need acknowledgement the most.

The strange thing about giving to someone you love is that you even give in the worst of times - and without any gratitude in return, and often it empties you, and you question yourself, but you carry on - you still find reservoirs from where you pour yourself out.

And then acknowledgement comes, often as a look, often as a touch, often as a lump in the throat - and in no time you are full again.

And how should we praise? How can something which is quietly done, often life-saving, invariably invaluable, be ever repaid? Nothing can match love's silent act in value, intent, or intensity.

So you can only be like the winter sun - warm without being cloying, present in spite of the cold, generous because that's what your nature should be.

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When I write, recite or feel,

and she says it's beautiful,

I'm filled with winter sun. 

.

      I re-read what I'd written,

      I again hear myself say what I'd said,

      I feel her feel the feeling of what I'd felt before. 

.

It's precious not because it's rare,

but because it's her glow that she shares,

as if we are sitting around a fire

but the cold knows all the crevices,

and she invites me into her blanket,

      and I know survival is warmth shared.

.

I tell her she's precious,

and she draws me to her breast,

and says - in the anarchy of living

it's precious to find a thought as a gift:

.

we are both flowers of life, no less,

having bloomed at the same time,

you've helped me ease my fall, 

I'll be the breeze to carry us far.

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