"Here is my secret, a very simple secret . . ."

Images courtesy We Heart It

Every year, I say I hate Valentine's Day. The one year I came close to actually having someone to spend it with, he didn't want to make plans to spend it with me, and I knew the relationship was on its way out. So, every year, as hearts and flowers start to appear, jewelry commercials air during every break, and rom coms outnumber every other movie at the theatre, I roll my eyes expressively and act too cool for school.

But, here is the secret: I really like the idea of a holiday devoted to love. Yes, it's a commercial holiday, but so is every other. I wish I could feel ambivalent towards Valentine's Day, but I don't; I really am a big romantic at heart, and the "hatred" is my way, I suppose, to deflect some of the disappointment of another year without a sweetie. But, I get sentimental and soppy at this time of year, the same as everyone else.

So, here's my tribute to the weekend, accompanied by words from my favorite poet, e.e. cummings. I hope you have someone to snuggle up with.

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 the 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)

since feeling is first

who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;


wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world


my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says


we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near


your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose


or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing


(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands