Grace

Grace
1. elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action.
2. a pleasing or attractive quality or endowment.
3. favor or good will.
4. a manifestation of favor, esp. by a superior.
5. mercy; clemency; pardon: an act of grace.

It has often been said that the secret to a happy marriage is to concern yourself with your spouse's (girlfriend's, boyfriend's, lover's) happiness more than your own. Last week, Scott Schuman (The Sartorialist) wrote a lovely piece called A Graceful Man, A Gentleman. If you haven't read it, please do. This is perhaps the sweetest description of how to treat the person you love.

For Grace

Modus Vivendi

Beyond the peripity of fortunes, you were born,

Rich in time and love, your seasons framed

By the twin thrones of Sun and Moon,

By the intimate discovery of butterflies

In the green heat of wild fields,

Episodes of laughter and fireflies on a summer night,

The wind's rustle of dried leaves on autumn roads,

And the filigree of frost on a windowpane.

Linga Imperfectus

Your tongue will learn the rapture of syllables,

Anxious to describe the movement of things.

Puzzled by words that won't fit, how can you hold

A mirror up to the feeling of water slipping

Through your fingers, and the quality of air

After the rain? We will grasp your meaning

If you let it suffice to praise everything

Around the one thing that holds you in ecstacy.

Tempu Fugit

You cannot be the passive witness of time's march.

Already, the procession of days have caught

You up in their swell. Time's hands start slowly,

Gathering speed and grace as they go, and you too will learn

To avert your gaze as the hours pass, one by one,

Irretrievable, into oblivion.