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Recorded Reading (2:12): https://www.dropbox.com/s/r99pr9lzmgev3ji/Unafraid%20to%20Love.mp3?dl=0

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Unafraid to Love

Lots of folks have readers
And I think that’s just fine —
I hope they’re like the readers
I proudly count as mine

I hope each reads with open heart
And with a clear, bright mind,
Gives benefit of lurking doubt,
Is in interpretation kind

Giving them the credit
For beneficent intent
Whenever words might obfuscate
What they originally meant

I hope their readers are as
Generous and swift with praise
As are my own subscribers
When some insight them amaze

I hope their commentary
— Which I hope they care to send —
Makes them feel the way mine do
As if I’d found a friend

I hope their readers’ contributions
Brighten up the world
Into which, oversensitive
Poets find selves hurled

And when grim trouble’s knock
Signals that it has come to call
I hope their readers back them up
The way mine do — that all

Their love and their affection
Encouragement, advice
Is given to them gen’rously
Not just once, nor yet twice

Throughout that time of hardship
As tremblingly they go,
I hope that they the lifting wings
Of warm pray’rs heartfelt know

I hope it brings them, as does me
Good suggestions — loving, kind —
To creative solutions see
To which might have been blind

I hope their wisdom and their hope
Rub off all over desp’rate hearts
Pointing the way synthesis to
Propagating fresh new starts

And when, at last at leisure
To nourish the creative seed
By reading some new lit’rature,
Their readers satisfy this need

With wonderful, inspiring
And enlight’ning works — their own;
That their readers are writers too
Some of the best they’ve ever known

Enjoying the communion,
At last, their long-sought brethren of
In word, in spirit, mind and heart
Unafraid to love

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This poet is physically disabled. Public housing being insufficient to her medical and creative needs, she is presently living, in order to continue working, in her minivan, publishing all of her works using one thumb on the touch screen of her smartphone, surviving at an income of a fraction of her nation’s poverty level. She would treasure any donation you might care to offer ~ http://www.UgiftABLE.com ● #72D-31S.

Please be aware that it takes several days for the poet to be notified of contributions. International contributors please contact the poet via email or post comment for necessary numbers.

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