Love Poems for Valentine's Day

Probably we should ban the word love for the next little while and proceed like the biblical Jews, who would not write or utter the sacred name of the Lord. Love is too mysterious, too profaned, too important almost for speech. But then what else do we human beings have? So in our imperfect way, we talk about God and we talk about love.

Here is one of the greatest love poems, written by the Irish poet and patriot, William Butler Yeats:

WHEN YOU ARE OLD


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.

["When You Are Old" is reprinted from The Rose. W.B. Yeats. 1893.]


Here is a poem I wrote some years back about family love and family happiness:

Lucky Seven (Lucky Five)
(Euclid and Wickliffe, Ohio, circa 1992)

When the snow finally melted
We pulled the four old bikes
Out of our Beech Drive garage
To head out for our adventure.

Emily was strapped in the baby seat,
Carolan wobbled a bit on her two-wheeler,
Now without training wheels,
While Julia was already a master of hers.

I would lead the way, followed by the girls,
And Linda would guard the back,
Watching over all, urging me to slow down,
Walk the bikes across Lloyd,
Watch the uneven sidewalk,
Shouldn’t the girls be wearing helmets?
Forever the mother.

Across Lloyd Road we entered exotic Wickliffe!
Down the street named “Grand Boulevard,”
A nice street indeed, but not the Champs Elysees!

The first stop was Wickliffe’s Intihar Park,
The swings, the monkey bars, the slide,
Then back on the bikes, through the park to Worden Road.

A couple blocks down Worden, et voila!
The Promised Land—or at least the promised store, “Lucky Seven”!

Lucky Seven was lucky mostly in my children’s minds.
This old relic of the 1930’s was a mecca for those needing pop,
Beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets.

My girls—they wanted Popsicles or Eskimo Pies.
And Linda and I needed a coke.

We’d lean against our bikes outside the store,
Or at times sit at the picnic table behind that ramshackle place,
And in the early spring chill, enjoy our little treats
And catch our breath from the long bike hike.

The ride home was more direct, straight down Grand,
Then left onto Walnut to Beech.

* * *

In memory, this is the happiest time—
We are the “Lucky Five”—
Linda, me, and the kids, Julia, Carolan, and Emily.

There are no photos, no movies of this,
The most precious moments are unrecorded,
Only indelible memory and deepest gratitude

For this gift of family life.

April 9, 2005