Valentine’s Day Creed

Comfort each other. Provide a refuge and sanctuary for each other from the chill winds of the world. Your marriage is a hearth, from whence comes the peace, harmony, and warmth of soul and spirit.

Caress as you would be caressed. Warm your loved one’s body with your healing touch. Remember that as babies can die with lack of touching, so can marriages wither from lack of closeness.

Be a friend and partner. Friendship can be a peaceful island, separate and apart, in a world of turmoil and strife. Reflect upon the tranquility of the many future years you can share with a true friend, and beware of becoming battling enemies under the same roof.

Be open with each other. Bind not yourselves in the secretness that causes suspicion and doubt. Trust and reveal yourselves to each other, even as the budding rose opens to reveal its fragrance and beauty.

Listen to each other. Hear not only words, but also the non-language of tone, mood, and expression. Learn to listen to understand rather than listening to argue.

Respect each other’s rights. Remember that each is a person of flesh and blood, entitled to his or her own choices and mistakes. Each owns himself, and has the right to equality.

Allow the other to be an individual Seek not to create for each other a new mold that can only fit with much discomfort and pain. Accept the other as they are, as you would have yourself accepted.

Give each other approval. Remember criticism divides, while compliments encourage confidence in the other. Hasten not to point out the other’s mistakes, for each will soon discover his own.

Cherish your union. Let no one come between your togetherness, not child, not friend, nor possessions. Yet maintain enough separateness to allow each other his or her own uniqueness.

Love one another. Love is your river of life, your eternal source of recreating yourselves. Above all else, love one another.

Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

I first stumbled upon this poem in the Valentine’s Day edition of my junior high school literary magazine.  Maybe it was the hot pink pages and the red cover, maybe it was the fact that I had not read a single issue of the magazine until that day.  I don’t know for sure, but I picked up a copy from the library table and stuffed it in my bag.  It was days later before I opened the pages and scanned hastily through the contents.  Poerty was not my thing, after all.  Then, amongst the prettily decorated pages I found a poem that especially struck me.  Fire and Ice was so powerful while at the same time so simple with its rhymed lines.  By the end of the week I had committed this poem to memory.  Years later, I still find myself reciting it.

Writing short stories and novels has always been my passion, but poetry will always hold a very special place in my heart all because of the chance reading of a poem by Robert Frost typed on hot pink paper.

A Thousand Words of Love

My Love, you know that I am not always clever with words. I have always relied on your easy, warm and understanding smile. But just this once I want to tell you that I love you like no one has ever told you before. There is a much greater motivation than simply my spoken words. For me, to love is to commit myself freely and without reservation. I am sincerely interested in your happiness and well-being. Whatever your needs are, I will try to fulfill them and will bend in my values depending upon the importance of your need. If you are lonely and need me, I will be there. If in that loneliness you need to talk, I will listen. If you need to listen, I will talk to you. If you need the strength of touch, I will touch you. If you need to be held, I will hold you. I will lie next to you if that is your need. If you need fulfillment of the flesh, I will give you that also. I will try to be constant with you so that you will understand the core of my personality and from that understanding gain the strength of security that I am acting as me. I, on occasion, may falter in my moods. I may project, at times, a strangeness that is alien to you, which may bewilder or even frighten you. There will be times when you may question my motives. But because people are never constant and are as changeable as the seasons, I will try to build up within you a faith in my fundamental attitude and show you that my inconsistency is only for a moment and is not a lasting part of me. I will show you love now. Each and every day, for every day is a lifetime. Every day that we live, we learn more how to love. I will not defer in my love, nor neglect it, for if I wait until tomorrow, tomorrow never comes. It is like a cloud in the sky, passing quickly by. If I give you kindness and understanding, then I receive your faith. If I give you hate and dishonesty, I will receive your distrust. If I give you fear and am afraid, you will become afraid and fear me. I will give you what you need to receive. To what degree I give my love is determined by my past and by my understanding of truth and love. My understanding is determined by my parents, friends, and places I have been. All experiences that have been fed into my mind from living. I will give you as much love as I can. If you show me how to give more, then I will give you more. I can only give as much love as you need to receive or allow me to give. If you receive all that I can give, then my love is endless and fulfilled. I must give all that I am capable of giving. Love is universal. Love is the movement of life. All things in life I find beautiful. No human being or society has the right to condemn any kind of love I feel or my way of expressing it. If I am sincere, sincerity being the honest realization of myself and there is no hurt or pain intentionally involved in my life or any life mine touches. I want to become a truly loving spirit. Let my words, when I speak, become a restoration of your soul. And when speech is silent, let my passion project a depth of sensitivity. When I touch you, when I kiss you, when I hold you, or when I love you, I am saying a thousand words.

Happy Valentine’s Day!