love at all times, of all kinds

 

Greetings, Poetry Friday venturers! It's getting on for Valentine's Day--an annual celebration which, despite being weighed down with roses & chocolates & sappy Hallmark cards, is among my favorites.  What's not to love about love? Philial, erotic, agape, pragmatic, playful--I find I had some things to learn about the 8 kinds of love identified by the Greeks (yes, I'm directing you to lifehack.org!), and here's one for us all to know:  

PHILAUTIA, self-love...the good kind, the kind where we are compassionate and affectionate to ourselves, which then allows us to truly love others.

On my shelf is a wee British book called 101 Poems That Could Save Your Life: An Anthology of Emotional First Aid (ed. Daisy Goodwin).  Look at that cover and you'll see why I thought of it this morning!  And inside, one of the best poems of philautia I know--maybe you do too.

 

Love After Love | Derek Walcott

 

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Let us go forth, whatever our relationship status, whatever the state of our routines, our ambitions, our creaky, crooked, creative, colorful bodies, and greet ourselves with love. Linda, the lovely one of TeacherDance, hosts our Poetry Friday lovefest today.

 ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

P.S.  If I am slow to comment on your PF posts this weekend, it's because I'm attending the SCBWI Winter Conference online.  Some parts of it are free and open to the public.  See below for a couple of sessions you can attend virtually this evening.

1 pm-2 pm Pacific/4-5 pm Eastern

Orientation for Newcomers with Jolie Stekly

Free and Open to the Public!

https://scbwi.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aVSpCGpjTQiBPZ0cg4z5CQ

2:30 pm-3:15 pm Pacific/5:30 pm-6:15 pm Eastern

Everything Changes, Nothing Ends:

Telling Stories with Brian Selznick

Free and Open to the Public!

https://scbwi.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_b54teYAeRVyFNGE0_204nQ

hearts again and why not?

http://stuffpoint.com/love/image/39530/

I have posted this poem before, on a quite special occasion since which my Beloved and I have tied the knot yet again in the state of Maryland.  And those pieces of paper we got officializing our marriage are pretty important for many social and political and financial and legal reasons.



But this string of words--that's all they are, which is the miracle--expresses a connection which must touch the inside, human place in everyone who has loved.  Now let that "hollow muscular organ that is the center of the circulatory system" fill up and become your Heart.

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

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)

~ e.e. cummings

The heart of Poetry Friday will no doubt overflow with  love this Valentine's Friday at Merely Day by Day with Cathy.