Valentine Day Poetry

There’s richness in a love for life

Here among the valentines,

A king and queen as man and wife:

Not leaning towards what lust inclines;

Knowing well the needs of state

Yon regal grace alone attends,

On which the peace, both small and great,

Undone by doubt, alone depends.

--

Valentine’s a day to say, “I love you,”

A ritual that stages something real,

Letting out the truth of what I feel

Even as I think it often of you.

Nor could I with such grace without this day

Tell you that I’m grateful that I have you,

Impress upon you just how much I need you,

Needing such a frame for what I say

Even as I would my heart reveal.

--

Valentine’s for lovers and for friends.

All my love goes out to you this day!

Love is something different from desire:

Even, silent, peaceful as the sky.

Nor is love interested in means or ends.

There are no selfish needs that it must weigh.

Instead, love’s plenitude itself inspires,

Needing neither cause nor reason why.

Each day my thoughts enchanted with you lie.

--

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.

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.

--

When you take me in your arms,

The world pauses it?s senseless spin,

The skies no longer seem too far away,

I float on a cloud, and swim about

In the most vast sea of joy?

You fill me so with love within,

No dream?s too far away?

When I can feel the warmth of your breath,

When I can lay my head on your chest,

All I know of is us, and of our love,

All the rest creeps into oblivion.

Drowned I remain in an unruffled ocean,

Protected like a pearl in its shell.

--

How necessary is it to remind

A loving couple that they are in love?

Perhaps a well-placed word might pierce the rind,

Penetrating hearts that dormant prove.

Years accumulate like fallen snow,

Vast fields of understanding, thick and cold,

Taking a risk that else they might evade,

In search of pleasure even angels seek.

Need comes slowly, like a warm spring rain.

Except one sing, the song must be in vain.

--

Each day your smile becomes my morning star.

I look at you and then my feelings shine.

From you I learn far more than words or numbers:

You’re the book that someday will be mine.

You’re the one whose love my love of learning

Will one day trace in its ancestral line.

For all the ways you help me grow towards beauty,

I ask you please to be my Valentine.

--

Happy Valentine, my love!

All my love is yours.

Praised be love that brings us home,

Pilgrims to these shores.

Yearnings here find harborage;

Vanities, sly smiles.

All that righteous anger rends,

Love here reconciles.

Even in the darkness where

No bitterness finds rest,

Thoughts of you are like a dawn

Intent on happiness.

Nor would I have so light a heart

Except that I am blessed!

--

Here there are not tears enough to tell you

All the love I have within my heart,

Plainly to proclaim my love before you,

Put with simple grace and little art.

Yet I must try, for love ought not be hidden,

Veiled for fear of nakedness if known,

Afraid to enter silences unbidden

Dancing back, white fold on endless fold.

All I am and have I give to you,

Yet love is more, and more I cannot do.

--

Hope is a breeze across an open field.

Anger comes from pounding on a door,

Positive one wants the door to yield.

Perhaps from this one senses something more.

Yearning is a song to wake the dead.

Not knowing that to have must mean to kill.

There is no deed that documents love’s fire;

In lovers’ hearts, one comes and goes at will.

Need is a wind that strips the landscape bare;

Eventually one turns, and love is there.