Hopeful Romantic

No matter how many Valentine's Days alone, not matter how many years watching and not participating in the glory of spring, no matter how many nights curled up next to the dog, I am not lonely or upset. I am waiting, I am hibernating, I am ready, I am hopeful.

I am dreaming and reading classic literature and marking favorite poems and being endlessly, hopefully romantic. Because the love between two people, the truly romantic love, does exist and is beautiful, and I love seeing glimpses of it between people that I love in other ways: between my engaged friends, between friends who are creating a family together, between my parents who are still in love with their mates after all these years.

I remember it. I look forward to it. I am so happy to see it around me, to celebrate it today.

And I do celebrate love--the special love between two people, and I am glad that we humans have it. It is so beautiful.

Here's one of my favorite love poems, and I'm posting it in honor of couples who are trying, valiantly, and succeeding together in love. It's by E. E. Cummings, and its title is its first line:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                                     i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)