Valentine Day

A Valentine is nothing like
A chocolate or a rose.
For in a week these shall be gone,
But Valentines remain.

If love were always sweet to tongue
Or fragrant to the nose,
Each day would be like Valentine's,
And we would go insane.

A Valentine just hangs around
Waiting to be kissed
Long after special days have passed
And every days are here.

So one is wise to choose one well
And chocolates to resist.
For in the midst of mania
It's nice to have one near.

Although our love is over, it remains
An unfrequented garden in my heart,
Its beauty quite inseparable from pain,
A wilderness where once was willful art.

I hope a little piece of you is still
Reserved for me, a place you may not go,
But where my room, untenanted, can fill
A moment with my music, sweet and slow.

There are no wishes like a former lover's
That from the dark, repentant night must shine.
And so though we have both moved on to others,
I send you from afar this Valentine.

Be my Valentine, for I
Each day have thought of you.
My whole life couldn't manage what
Your ready smile can do,
Vanquishing my loneliness
As though all light were new.
Let me be your Valentine
Even as you're mine,
Needing what I have to give
That each might each define
In friendship and in harmony,
Now you, now I the melody,
Each helping each to shine.

Be my Valentine, my love,
As I will be for you,
And we will love the whole day long,
And love our whole lives through.

For love has no parameters
And does not end with time,
But is the gift of paradise,
A pinch of the sublime.

So let us take this holiday
To resubmit our love
To those within that know no sin
And with the angels move.

Be my Valentine: What does that mean?
Each of us must walk through life alone,
More deeply desolate than we have known,
Yearning for a truth we've never seen.
Valentines are from beyond that dream,
Are like a sunrise on a world of stone.
Little on this journey can we own
Except as miracles might intervene.
No way but through loving might we give
The freedom of our being to another.
In such a sacrifice we hope to live
No longer bound by dreams of flesh and bone,
Even as we bind our lives together

Be with us in the circle of our love,
Even if by chance you are alone.
Our greetings we have hope your heart will move,
Uniting our good wishes with your own.
Remember there are those who think of you,
Vested in the will to be a friend.
As distant hills give depth to what we view,
Let these words some grace to your day lend.
Each life is lived behind a sheltering veil,
Not lifted but for love. Yet when we will,
There is a wind that shifts the rampart frail,
Invading with sweet scent the spirit st

Beautiful eyes, beautiful face,
I'm shy to talk to you.
You're the eagle I must watch
No matter what I do.

You're the beauty, wild and free,
The mistress of my eyes,
Rolling through exultant air,
Alone in pristine skies.

I would take you for my own
Could I but have your wings,
Could I but go where night begins
And frozen sunlight sings.

Could I but have you for my love,
How might we fly together!
But I must watch you from below
And long for you forever.
But I must be the one below
And

Before I ask y'all, please understand,
Even as I come from way down South,
My heart is more loquacious than my mouth,
Yearning like a wave for your smooth sand.
Very few down here will show their hand,
Aching like a riverbed for rain,
Lying like a platitude in pain,
Each chili inside, outside baked beans bland.
Now here down South it ain't right to demand
The things you're dying for, but you real fine,
In a voice polite as preachers set to dine,
Nicely say, "Mind if I trouble you, Ma'am," -
Easy

Before I knew you, I had always loved you,
Even as I dreamed of whom I'd love.
My inner picture was a portrait of you
Years before your heart my heart would move.
Vistas of enchantment are but rarely
As we find them in reality.
Love with you is what I dreamed, but really,
Eden as no dream could ever be.
Nor is this the magic of the moment,
The proper costume for the holiday.
In words like these one finds the winnowed ferment,
Not of the desire, but of the way,
Else lost amid the longings of the

Before love, that jolting lilt
East of roses, in perturbed darkness,
Missing the eternal circumstance,
Yearning still, again, for that exploratory tilt �
Vainly would I fly into your heart
Afire, burning, consumed, expended.
Love is not an ending; nor does it end
Easily: becomes pith, becomes seed, starts
Needing, kneading, mid-desperation,
The long climb out of loneliness, turning
In hope, in anguish, in foolish expectation.
No two are joined except in painful learning:
Each frightened les

Blessed are those who cherish well their loves!
Each enduring love is like a river:
Making bloom the land through which it moves,
Yielding bounty in exchange for labor.
Very few appreciate this treasure,
As most desire more while giving less,
Liable to miss joy pursuing pleasure,
Each dragged into love under duress.
Nor does one understand so easily
That love requires one to be a lover:
Intimate in ways that set one free,
Needing for one's sense of self the other,
Even as one is oneself an other