2023 Tuesday — Heart Day

I hope it's okay on Valentine's to think about the difference between romantic love and extravagant love and I wish that this holiday could be about both. So that for couples it could be romantic, but for everyone it could be extravagant -- a day when we all realize that everyone needs to be loved so we all are a little nicer than we're naturally prone towards. Yay, I know that's way too idealistic.

At weddings we often hear the "love chapter" read aloud . . . with the famous ending "and the greatest of these is love." So today I'm wishing us all a larger dose of love and realizing that the best way to get love is to give it . . . even if it doesn't get returned from the one it is given to. I do believe, though, that it will return to us.

A PERFECT HEART

To make a perfect heart you take a sheet
of red construction paper of the type
that's rough as a cat's tongue, fold it once,
and crease it really hard, so it feels
as if your thumb might light up like a match,

then choose your scissors from the box. I like
those safety scissors with the sticky blades
and the rubber grips that pinch a little skin
as you snip along. They make you careful,
just as you should be, cutting out a heart

for someone you love. Don't worry that your curve
won't make a valentine; it will. Rely
on chewing on your lip and symmetry
to guide your hand along with special art.
And there it is at last: a heart, a heart!

by Ted Kooser, Valentines: Poems

Presidential Professor of the University of Nebraska
former U.S. poet laureate
winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry

This has not been the best of seasons for us (construction woes are happening here), so that explains Mr. Fun’s words in the card.

Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol
and Chloe & Mitzi too!