seventy times seven kinds of loving

Veterans

There are seventy times seven kinds of loving
None quite right:
One is of making, one of arguing,
One of wheedling in the night
And all the others one can think of, none quite right.

They are all good,
Paying attention, giving the low-down kiss;
Answering back in the heart is always good
And coming out of a sulk is almost bliss.

There is a kind of loving in grass and weeds,
One in brass beds, another in corridors;
An uncanny kind that turns away and bleeds
And a gorgeous kind, practised by saints and bores.

They are all hard,
All seventy times seven, hard as can be:
Veterans of loving are wary-eyed and scarred
And they see into everything they see.


- George Johnston, Home Free (1966)