We put the call out. You responded with your poems, songs and stories. In these dark times, your writings have warmed our hearts. Here they are — with our thanks and admiration.
Yolande, Gillie, Hilary, Shelly
Lovesong
The music moves you
You dance and my heart dances
You reach for my hand
Kimberly-Anne Ford
❤❤❤❤❤
I want to walk with you under the moonlight by Peter Coady
Love
You cannot see or hear it,
It’s a feeling in your soul.
A fascination for body and spirit,
So strong it takes control.
And everybody longs to be loved,
To have warm arms tightly squeezing.
Or wants to be yelled at or shoved?
To cuddle is much more pleasing.
You’ll do anything just to meet,
You get FIRE from a kiss.
Apart you’re incomplete,
Togetherness leads to bliss.
Love can also hurt you,
It leaves teardrops on your face.
Your smile and drive desert you,
A heartache takes their place.
You endure loneliness and despair,
Somehow, it all went wrong.
Others follow, but they don’t compare.
True love. Nothing is as strong.
Ronald Wood
❤❤❤❤❤
Valentine?
I don’t know what to do
when i’m with you
I don’t know what to say
when you say hey
I don’t know what to feel
when things seem real
as long I’m with you
I know that I will heal
cause’ i don’t know everything
that comes to my head
but when i'm with you
i feel we can be two
Two peas in a pod
i think that’s how it goes
you are my valentine as we
grow slow.
Florence Valiquet
❤❤❤❤❤
6 Haikus
self-grafting
two trees became one -
holding your hand
strawberry runners
touch down routes-
your embrace
music from catgut
how you touch me
just there
cumin and onion-
the scent of your skin
on my skin
satisfaction
in the silence-
spring peepers
one day rubs
against the next
your bare foot
Pearl Pirie
❤❤❤❤❤
I Love You
I love you because you’re my best friend
I love you because you love the Hip
I love you because when I emerge, you’re still there
I love you because when you emerge, I want more
I love you because you are complete
I love you because before I met you, I thought I was complete
I love you because you believe when I doubt
I love you because I don’t scare you
I love you because you fall asleep on the back of my motorcycle
Jacques Legault
❤❤❤❤❤
A Heart is a Heart by Michelle Marok
Her small round body steps quickly and eagerly towards me, holding a book much larger than her tiny hands can grasp. “Baba, read book” she whispers, as she climbs her way onto the couch clutching at my legs. She nestles next to me, her head nuzzled into my neck as we read the book. I make up stories about the her and the pictures in the book, and she glances my way as though she is wondering — does the story really say that? As she recognizes the pictures, she utters the words, in combination with small gestures and expressive facial features. Her whole body is her vocabulary.
A few minutes later, she is immersed in another activity. She has a small notebook and a pen, just big enough for a two-year old’s hand. She makes a few scribbles and asks me to draw a heart. And another heart. It’s her favourite image. Heart was one of her first words. “Red heart” — she would say, and point with her tiny finger to the image of the Miro painting on the calendar. It’s her favourite Miro, and now mine too.
My late aunt wrote many short stories of their lives growing up on a rural Alberta farm durning the depression. Life was difficult for them, and their father was very ill and died at a young age. His wish for his children was always “May you always be as happy and free from care as you are at this time”. With love, that is my valentine wish for my special grand daughter.
Be Rich with your Blessing of Love
She is a young girl, just weeks old.
Her photograph is swaddled in purple pajamas
embraced by proud mother arms.
Intense eyes draw attention.
You feel her heart beat –
three thousand miles away.
When the Zoom Call has ended
and the Gulf of Distance
has returned you often find your self
in limbo before the blank screen.
Grasping to relive the tiny hand wave.
Cement the wide eyed stare.
Sigh … ah how brief
and intangible
the moment.
She is a women, of a certain age.
Significantly accomplished, dearly loved
as a friend, a colleague, a mother, a soulmate.
You are there for her –
just across town.
When you close your dear friend’s door
after your weekly visit you often need
to pause a moment in the hallway
of the care home.
And weep
for what you are both losing.
You who love are Blessed …
with patience.
To endure a love that wants,
That tests, that is nurtured
in large part by imagination.
Be rich with your blessing.
Fearless with your boundary.
Generous with yourself.
Some may caution BEWARE …
but you already know … that
love is NEVER unconditional.
Time, Space, Priority, they each
need managing.
As they inject themselves … and again …
into the fray … and again …
injecting …
But life is -
fortunately -
so much bigger than love.
It is the creation of
opportunities to love.
So live it.
So pause again
in a hallway.
To mourn the brevity
of a moment.
Peter Gillies
❤❤❤❤❤
Adolescence
If you only knew would you care
Should I dare to let you know how I feel
Could I steal your heart away
Am I prey for your desires do our fires
Simply satisfy your needs as I bleed
And I ache to watch you go do you know
Just how cruel you are to me can you see
Are you blind to my pain can I gain
By pointing out what you know?
Kimberly-Anne Ford
❤❤❤❤❤
My Frozen Valentine
The soul slicing sound
of skates carving half hearts
into hard surfaces.
Park la Fontaine 1983:
Leah porting a puffy crinoline
over chunky snowpants,
the cold white stars laughing down
on the swirling forms,
ghosts of white breath streaming
after them as
they performed that timeless dance:
Laurent swiped her hat
and she chased after him
skidding into
the ambush of his arms
then struggling to be free
(freedom being snared
and somehow safe
from all fictional hazards).
It was that frozen second
that sealed their amour
as the moon blinked in collusion,
an empty reflection
served on a glint of ice.
Kathryn Harper
❤❤❤❤❤
To the Bride
At first she is a person,
Who you have feelings for.
The feelings don’t fade or worsen,
They grow more and more.
You yearn just to hold her,
To have her by your side.
Her presence by your shoulder,
Fills your heart with pride.
She’s a lady you’re thinking of,
While she is Lord knows where.
She’s a woman you can love,
A good friend who does care.
When troubles have you pressed,
She can make you laugh.
As the key to your success,
She’s your better half.
Worth more than any treasure,
Keep her safe from harm.
She brings joy beyond measure,
And is your Lucky Charm!
Ronald Wood
❤❤❤❤❤
Friendship
I am wrapped up in your friendship
tightly, tightly
just enough space for an astonished breath
just enough freedom for a fluttering heart
just enough understanding for worries to vanish
Tight, tight, our friendship floats on water
then glides into the sea
lifts up to the stars
then melts into the sun
Our friendship
dances on arpeggios
drifts above the highest pine
crosses countries and continents
leaving behind
a trail of longing
and
belonging
Regiena Heringa
❤❤❤❤❤
enough for each other
let's not rest on our sorrows.
the next is the rest. forget
the world past our small kingdom
of home, of us. physical space
is foreign , funny as currency
in strange colours,
a different way to vowel.
we live contained in sounds
of heartbeats and lungs.
we try to keep everything
we already have.
more kept-o-maniacs than kleptos.
we lean in to hear, lipread, we
are priests to one another's confessions,
as holy leeches we suck the shame out
from each other's toes. it keeps us busy,
heliums us lighter. we stumble naturally
into hugs as we move.
Pearl Pirie
❤❤❤❤❤
excerpt from Speaking in Tongues
On the outside
the bark of the tamaracks
criss cross like the grooves of water
in the shallows.
Tree heat
held in by the fibrous skin
that speaks to my fingers
of warm shoulder blades elbows
the hard edges that surface unexpectedly
I have wanted to take a knife to them
to pare them down to the creamy bone
to discover more of you.
The shape of you that lips and eye
and palms can't tell me.
Gillie Griffin
❤❤❤❤❤
Remedy River by Mia Kelly
Wandering Wakefield 