Why Do I Love You? (Satis Shroff) Poem by Satis Shroff

Why do I love you?
Because you love me.

I love you,
And no one else.

I have to love you.
I cannot do otherwise.

And you?
Do you love me,
Because you have to love me,
And no one else?

Perhaps you love me
For I am, the way I am.
And I love you
Because you are
The way you are.

Now we love our children,
And the children love us,
And we love each other.

Perhaps it was our destiny
To love each other,
As destiny goes.


About the Author:

Satis Shroff is a writer and poet based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) who also writes on ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Science in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and Manchester. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize for 1998.


What others have said about the author:
Wonderful clarity and good details. (Sharon Mc Cartney, Fiddlehead Poetry Journal)

Satis Shroff writes with intelligence, wit and grace. (Bruce Dobler, Senior Fulbright Professor in Creative Writing, University of Pittsburgh) .

Since 1974 I have been living on and off in Nepal, writing articles and publishing books about Nepal- this beautiful Himalayan country. Even before I knew Satis Shroff personally (later) I was deeply impressed by his articles, which helped me very much to deepen my knowledge about Nepal. Satis Shroff is one of the very few Nepalese writers being able to compare ecology, development and modernisation in the ‘Third’ and ‘First’ World. He is doing this with great enthusiasm, competence and intelligence, showing his great concern for the development of his own country. (Ludmilla Tüting, journalist and publisher, Berlin) .

Due to his very pleasant personality and in-depth experience in both South Asian, as well as Western work-styles and living, Satis Shroff brings with him a cultural sensitivity that is refined. His writings have always reflected the positive attributes of optimism, tolerance, and a need to explain and to describe without looking down on either his subject or his reader. (Kanak Mani Dixit, Himal Southasia, Kathmandu) .