But all this was only in my imagination. What did I really know? At school the masters always talked of solving problems, finding answers. It was always about answers. But what if many things we encounter have no answers? What if they just remain unsolved mysteries? Why for instance had my mother's nerves failed her? How could you like a person yet not like him too? How could I still have such strong feelings for a girl I now realized I didn't know all that well? And what was going to become of her? And why did I still care so much?

So many things then seemed indeterminate, stories without endings. And looking out the train window on that late-summer afternoon in my fifteenth year, I think I sensed, in a small way at least, that such mysteries lay at the heart of everything that would matter in my life.

- October by Richard B. Wright.

Lets face it. Love is an animal. Though my grandfather told me once that love is more like a bird, if you hold it tightly it dies, if you hold it slightly, it flies. People often ask me how I capture such intimacy in the couples I have the honor of photographing. The key is looking from a different perspective. I don’t see them as who they are that day, happy and carefree. I see them as they will be tomorrow. I see them in the road ahead, in both the good times and the bad and all that they will endure. Together. Some days there will be love made on the kitchen floor, and others there will be sleepless nights on the couch. I have known both.

I received a letter once from an old friend. She mentioned that she recently had her heart broke and could only wish to one day find someone that sees her the way that my couples see each other. How would she know when she has found the “one”? Trust me when I say that tender gaze, that almost kiss, does not come without work. There will be joy, there will be pain. I have known both. If you are reading this I want you to know that you are amazing. He is not. And this is my advice to you. Find a boy who calls you beautiful instead of hot. Who calls you back when you hang up on him. Who will lie under the stars and listen to your heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep. Wait for the boy who kisses your forehead. Who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats. Who holds your hand in front of his friends. Who thinks you’re just as pretty without makeup on. You will know he is the one because he will apologize first even if he feels he was in the right, because being right won’t matter if you go to bed angry. When you tell a joke he will laugh out loud. He will constantly be reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky his is to have found you. He will turn to his friends and say, ‘that’s her.’
This is the bird that my grandfather spoke of. When you find this bird hold onto it but remember to give it room to grow. Room to breathe. Do this together. And when you find him, call me. I want to photograph it.

My name is Clayton Austin. I am just a man and I tend to see things better with my eyes closed.

Starfish   by Eleanor Lerman  

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who say, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.

So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

Demas, In Love With This Present World by Kristin Fogdall

2 Timothy 4:9-10

What you've heard is true — I've gone to Thessilonika.
I've taken a room above the agora with a view
of the harbor and wake too early to merchants' voices,
bleatings of every sort, and carpets being beaten.
The innkeeper and his wife bring bread — they are kind,
and their daughter is pretty, though she has a withered hand.

At night I watch the fishing boats come in to shore,
hung with many lanterns. The men pull up their nets
and sort the catch in shifting light; they sometimes sing
a song about the moon seducing an old sailor
and drink a bit and fall asleep wrapped in their robes.
Later someone puts the lights out one by one.

In between, the days are slow, and I think of you often.
I know what some are saying, that I loved my father
and his estate more than truth and our way of life.
It wasn't the inheritance that called me back,
and I won't return to the assembly or his house.
Demetrius is here, asleep beside me as I write.

He has thrown one of his warm legs over me
in a dream, and two pears with a jar of wine wait
on the table for when he wakes. I wish you understood
how it feels to fear the truth while also loving him.
I still believe this present world is passing away,
but now it is impossible to rejoice with you.

Sometimes when I walk outside the city gates
and look up into the mountains, toward Rome
where all of you are waiting, I want to come back —
but it doesn't last. I walk home through the colonnade,
listening to the temple priests and fortune tellers,
the eastern caravans selling cedar, pearls, and linen.

The innkeeper's daughter greets me at the door,
the weak hand cupped to her breast. She has been
praying to a small bright god in the corner
of her room, for health and peace, as she has been taught.
I will go upstairs and place my arms around the loved
and living body of one who owns no household gods,

who confesses no world but this. We will watch
the sky turn dark and wait for the fishermen to light
their lamps and disappear across the invisible sea.
I pray to the God I remember, whom I love and fail
to love, knowing words are all I have to bind
us to each other, knowing they are passing too.

Grace be with you.

Here when I say "I never want to be without you,"
somewhere else I am saying
"I never want to be without you again." And when I touch you
in each of the places we meet

in all of the lives we are, it's with hands that are dying
and resurrected.
When I don't touch you it's a mistake in any life,
in each place and forever.

a lifetime seems to gape
from when we carved our names
on a coconut tree
now long-lost among the hundreds
shading this haven,
that jack-knife cut
a whisper to the wind,
youth’s vandalism of hope

corrected by the
grammar of growing up
but, like a nursery rhyme,
love’s basic vocabulary
repeats, still speaks
chapters of comfort,
folios of faith

seen from this shore
here is another snatch of stasis
on the hurtling continuum:
on one side
the shimmer of Shenton Way,
on the other
Changi Airport’s shine
and in between
a seamless string
of ship’s lamps,
like some Milky Way
of Neptune

imagery of love
is old as the sea
but each time
the metaphors recharge
renew what they signify
in the abiding language
of the heart