National Poetry Month

was inaugurated (I love that word, inaugurated)
in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets
and is now celebrated in the month of
April.

With that, I shall share one of my most favored questions, posed by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, at age 39, to her then secret love, younger by six years, poet Robert Browning, before she ran away from home to marry him.
Asks Elizabeth in Sonnet No. 43, "How do I love thee?"
Then answers, "Let me count the ways."

Let us also remember Emily Dickinson's poem

"Not in Vain"
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

I implore us to pen our beloveds and express our love and gratitude.
May we be aware and kind to humans as well as feathered friends.
And may we read, create, contemplate and celebrate poetry in our lives and world for a way good day!

{photo one by flickr omoo; photo two from wilipedia.org}