Poetry Friday is being hosted this week by Kimberley Moran at Written Reflections.
Last night my husband told me he’d made a reservation for dinner on Saturday. Usually, the realization that it’s Valentine’s comes too late. Which is never a concern, but this year he remembered.
Caught by the spirit and Poetry Friday, I picked up Ted Kooser’s Valentines. I love this collection. It contains his annual Valentine poems that started in 1986. The first, Pocket Poem, he sent to 50 women friends. Kooser continued the tradition every Valentines to a growing list of women for twenty-two years.
Pocket Poem by Ted Kooser
If this comes creased and creased again and soiled
as if I’d opened it a thousand times
to see if what I’d written here was right,
it’s all because I looked too long for you
to put in your pocket. Midnight says
the little gifts of loneliness come wrapped
by nervous fingers. What I wanted this
to say was that I want to be so close
that when you find it, it is warm from me.
Poetry pushes on the personal and private; the inner workings of what makes us tick.
It forces me to pay attention.
.I Know
Each year passes
and I know
the quiet acceptance, the comfort that presence provides.
I know
the beat, the rhythm, steadfast in the present.
Created over time.
I know
you will be here and there
with me.
To Read To Write To Be 