The Perfect Love Song Poem by Seamus Whittington Crawford III

The first time
I ever heard
'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face'
was during
'Play Misty for Me' of course.

I leapt up, grabbed my guitar,
stopped the movie
and rewound it
a hundred times
until
I had the chord sequence
and lyrics down on paper.

Then I spent
the rest of the night
trying to grasp
the full beauty of this song.
I forgot the movie.
I had been touched
by something not of this earth.
I wanted it in my blood.

I was, and remain, in awe.
To me, it's
the perfect, angelic blend of
words, notes,
rhythm, voice
and instrumentation.
The result is ethereal and bewitching.

In my mind,
no other love song
comes close to
matching its perfection.
No other love song
says 'I love you' with
such mesmerizing tenderness.

'The first time
ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose
in your eyes
And the moon and stars
were the gifts you gave
To the dark and the empty skies, my love,
To the dark and the empty skies.'

Now, do you think the man (yes, a man)
who wrote that
had his woman up on a pedestal?
How would you psychoanalyze him?

She was in a play and
the play had a romantic scene
that needed a love song.

She called her husband,
who wrote songs.

He wrote it in an hour,
called her back
and played/sang it for her
over the telephone.

Roberta Flack didn't record it
until something like 15 years later.

I wish I could sing this to you.
I wish it were true.
Oh how I wish it were true.

Are you immune to all romance?
Or just mine?

Play that song sometime.
Close your eyes
and imagine
a man,
any man,
writing that for you.