Valentine’s Day-2021
To my husband, Charlie
after 46 years
It was seventh grade, and Valentine’s day meant only Elvis Presley
and loving tender, loving long, never letting go. And he crooned
and we imagined— we knew that we felt that love. Truly, we
were filled with the search for it. We would never let it leave!
During those days, it seemed, it would be just minutes before those
dreams were there, fulfilled, tender in our own— our darling’s heart.
Yet now, as months have spun to years and years to seasons—even
decades of our lives— you, my love, and I, we’ve turned a gyre of
times together, gazed at forests, lakes, mountains, even blended our
prescient minds as one. We’ve wondered how it is we’ve been able
to grasp the snowflakes in our hands, lace our fingers, our desires
together to our palms, and treasure, too, our grown son’s thoughts—
his silent ideas— with yearning, resonance— their own cadence of love.
Only now we’ve learned that long ago, we forgot what it meant
to yearn for “all our dreams fulfilled.” We’ve finally come to see
that our touch, our sharing of love, reflects but tacit needs, the quiet ones
requited alone and in secret—under and beneath—. This exchange,
perhaps akin to the hidden give-and-take of earthy stealth— underground
between deep, entangled and buried roots—their gnarled and nearby trees.
and loving tender, loving long, never letting go. And he crooned
and we imagined— we knew that we felt that love. Truly, we
were filled with the search for it. We would never let it leave!
During those days, it seemed, it would be just minutes before those
dreams were there, fulfilled, tender in our own— our darling’s heart.
Yet now, as months have spun to years and years to seasons—even
decades of our lives— you, my love, and I, we’ve turned a gyre of
times together, gazed at forests, lakes, mountains, even blended our
prescient minds as one. We’ve wondered how it is we’ve been able
to grasp the snowflakes in our hands, lace our fingers, our desires
together to our palms, and treasure, too, our grown son’s thoughts—
his silent ideas— with yearning, resonance— their own cadence of love.
Only now we’ve learned that long ago, we forgot what it meant
to yearn for “all our dreams fulfilled.” We’ve finally come to see
that our touch, our sharing of love, reflects but tacit needs, the quiet ones
requited alone and in secret—under and beneath—. This exchange,
perhaps akin to the hidden give-and-take of earthy stealth— underground
between deep, entangled and buried roots—their gnarled and nearby trees.