The Riddle of Friendship

Friendship is that costly treasure; 

It pays even as it pains. 

It is that Pearl of Great Price 

Which demands the sale of the Hidden Field of the heart. 

Yet, the exchange is a rich bargain—trading intimacy for intimacy.  

All that is lost is gained again 

In the merging of two, once-foreign and alienated lands. 

Friendship joins two tributaries, directing opposing currents,  

Transforming them into a tide most powerful. 

The stagnant death of isolated pools is nullified, purified, vivified,

By the paradoxical juxtaposition of action, reaction, interaction. 

The Spirit broods over the face of the deep, 

The mingling of the waters of comradery drowns the dust of dearth, 

The Great River of Friendship teems with life and living.

  

A friend is one who is rather than one who has;

He is the one who takes sorrows, halves them, 

And gives them back again-- 

Polished, softened, useful. 

His silent counsel is heard 

Above the din of one’s own cacophonous worries. 

His memory is an omnipresent consolation;  

He is there even when he isn’t. 

Though sometimes hindered by the twin mirages of distance and time, 

He sticks closer than any blood-born brother. 

A friend is one who walks in when everyone else is walking out; 

He is there when the desire to be by yourself is overwhelmed 

By the lack of strength, or the courage, or the will to be alone. 

His wounds are ever faithful; a balm all their own. 

His kisses press upon the bruised cheek, 

But absent is the familiar cruelty of that Infamous Deceit. 

He is true because Friendship is true; 

the veritable evidence of intangible tangibility.