A Couple Love Poems for Valentine's Day

When You Are Old

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.#

If It Were Not for You

BY HAYDEN CARRUTH

Liebe, meine liebe, I had not hoped   

to be so poor

                   The night winds reach   

like the blind breath of the world

in a rhythm without mind, gusting and beating   

as if to destroy us, battering our poverty   

and all the land’s flat and cold and dark

under iron snow

                        the dog leaps in the wind   

barking, maddened with winter, and his voice   

claps again and again down the valley   

like tatters of revolutionary pennants

                                                         birches

cry and hemlocks by the brook

stand hunched and downcast with their hands   

in their pockets

Liebe, the world is wild   

and without intention

                               how far

this might be from the night of Christmas   

if it were not for you.

Down the reaching wind

shrieks of starlight bear broken messages

among mountains where shadows plunge

                                                      yet our brightness   

is unwavering

                   Kennst du das land   

wo die zitronen blühn, im dunkeln laub

die goldorangen ... liebe

art thou singing

It is a question partly

of the tree with our stars and partly

of your radiance brought from the land   

where legends flower to this land   

but more than these our bright poverty   

is a house in the wind and a light   

on the mountain

Liebe, our light rekindled

in this remoteness from the other land,

in this dark of the blue mountain where only   

the winds gather

      is what we are for the time that we are   

      what we know for the time that we know

How gravely and sweetly the poor touch in the dark.#

Still Life, With Grand Babies

                                                --for Linda

You on the blue recliner,

Twelve-week old Robby over your right shoulder,

Three-year-old Colin snuggling you on the left,

Close to your heart

            Close to your heart!

                                                            Bob / March 28, 2014