Bounty

I am working through the bounty
of a thousand poems
and know I must make decisions:
this stays, that goes.
It’s rather like slaying my children.

And how does one measure love?
The heart has no numerical chart
by which you score
one child less and another more?

What possibly is the applied criterion?
Love, like a poem, exists
and nothing one can do about it.

To measure is out of the question.
Love just goes on…
then suddenly disappears
as if never happened.

It's all so queer.
Even where choice is made
there may come an end.
Weeping, maybe rejoicing, but no appeal.

The apple peeled, moreover, carefully sliced,
may lose all taste.