Why is it that when we are apart, I can think of a thousand things to say, Tender, Witty, Gay, A myriad words my eager heart can find To share all that I have seen, And felt, and known, and been; So many questions I long to ask, To sense and savour, Sift and find Your essence; But when you're near How foolish I stand, Like a gauky adolescent, Tongue-tied, Timid, Shy; And when at last from the arid blankness of my mind, I seize a word it is Inapt, Absurd, Trite, And not at all what I had meant to say?