for what they are

Sunlight pours into my study from four windows. Year after year the turquoise silk has faded to a gentle watery blue, the brilliant embroidery has softened, and it is lovelier than ever. "We love the things we love for what they are," Robert Frost reminds us. And he means, I think, that we love them as they change -- he is speaking in the poem of a brook gone dry -- as well as for what they once were.

-- May Sarton Plant Dreaming Deep