For Valentine's Day: Mary Oliver and "Felicity"

Sometimes, you find love where you least expect it. 

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) is not usually considered a love poet. at least in the traditional understanding of love poetry. We might first think of Shakespeare and his sonnets, or Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or Pablo Neruda, or Edna St. Vincent Millay. One of the best-known poems by William Butler Yeats is the love poem “When You Are Old.” Or the Elizabethan poets, and the Romantics. But Mary Oliver?

 

As it turns out, yes, Mary Oliver. 

 

In Felicity: Poems, published in 2015, Oliver included several love poems. They’re not what we might call “traditional” love poems; in some of them, she backs into the love theme. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

St. Valentine’s Day: A Girl, a Priest, and a Letter

He laid down his quill and took a deep breath.

He had been there for weeks, and it was easy to lose track of time. He sat on the floor of his cell among the soiled rushes, closing his eyes, if not his nose, to the smell. His crime was to have performed marriage rites for soldiers. He could do that for Christians, as long as the authorities turned a blind eye, but not for soldiers. Soldiers could not marry.

His had been a two-fold crime: marrying soldiers, and being a Christian. His faith, like the faith of others, was usually overlooked until someone in authority needed a bout of intolerance and finger pointing.

His execution was tomorrow, death by beheading, a sentence customary for Roman citizens. He had been allowed to write a final note, and that’s what he was doing now. It was not a note to his church, his faithful, nor to his family. No, his final note was to the young woman, the daughter of his jailer. She had been dying, consumed with a raging fever, when her father, under the cover of late darkness and a bribed guard, had walked him, his arms and feet manacled, to his daughter.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Illustration: Traditional paintings of St. Valentine.

Saturday Good Reads

It’s been a while since I posted a Saturday Good Reads, and what better day to that than Valentine’s Day? These are some of the good things I ran across during the past week – David Rupert asking whether or not he needed a bucket list; a video tribute to London courtesy of Wordsworth; a fun poem about candy by Maureen Doallas; and another London video, this one on how to clean up the financial district.

St. Valentine, by the way, was an early Christian named Valentinus. Not much is known about him, but he was said to have been martyred and buried in the north of Rome near the Milvian Bridge (the site of the later battle where Constantine triumphed, a turning point in the history of the church). Part of the legend about him is that he was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers (who were forbidden to marry) and for ministering to the persecuted Christians. Last year, Huffington Post had a “real story” of who he actually was.

Legend or not, St. Valentine is anchored in the early history of the Christian faith. The painting above is “The Morning of St. Valentine” by John Calcott Horsley, painted in 1865. It is part of the collection of the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

Faith

This Little Light of Mine – Eric Peters at The Rabbit Room.

Who needs a bucket list? – David Rupert at Red-Letter Believers.

Giving Authentic Faith a Welcome Invitation – Kevin Adams at Wake Up My Faith.

My Response to President Obama’s Address at the National Prayer Breakfast – Ravi Zacharias.

Poetry

10 Ways to Read a Poem – Mary H. Sayler at The Poetry Editor.

Hershey’s Got No Baby Ruth – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

Two Knights – Brendan MacOdrum at Oran’s Well.

You and I are so alike – John Blase.

Juliet’s Aubade – Sara Barkat via Everyday Poems.

A Poetic Tribute to London, City in Motion – Anglotopia (inspired by William Wordsworth’s “Composed upon Westminster Bridge”) (Hat tip to my wife for finding the link)

Writing

The sanctity of writing – Billy Coffey at What I Learned Today.

The Writing Life – Episode 8: Keep Calm and Carry On – Ann Kroeker.

How do you research? Swim – Megan Willome.

Photography

Light and Leaves Abstract – Tim Good.

Fun Stuff

Baths4Banks – London figures out how to clean up its financial district (and mind the gap!)

I remember

For Janet Young

I remember an album

            Father hear your children call

            Humbly at your feet we fall

            Prodigals confessing all

            We beseech thee – hear us!

I remember flowers, and photographs

            of flowers.

I remember snow, a mere half-inch,

            the third snow I’d ever seen

            each a mere half-inch

            each filled with magic, wonder

            but nothing like the third.

I remember sitting on a curb, trying

            to avoid your waiting

bus ride north

            my waiting car drive west

I remember the phone bill Ma Bell

frowned upon, demanding

immediate payment before

it was due

I remember driving north with the dog,

            leaving near midnight to drive

            five hours in the night arriving

not long before dawn to go back almost

the same way, the same time

I remember, always remember,

            the time becoming we,

            becoming us, the first valentine

            signifying what was to come.

Photograph by Vera Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

No. 40 Valentine’s Day

We must have been idiots.

Feb. 14, 1973: We had known each other a little over a month. I gave her flowers. She gave me an album (back them it was a real album) – the soundtrack to Godspell, which had been on Broadway only a couple of years before. The flowers were red and white carnations, with one blue iris right in the middle. The blue iris was my fraternity’s flower.

How do I remember the flowers? She took a boatload of picture of them. We still have an old, faded photograph.

It was cold. Not long before, we had actually had snow, a massive half inch that had paralyzed Baton Rouge.

We had known each other a month, and we were what they called head over heels. Eight months after that, we would be married.

We had to be idiots.

When she took me home to Shreveport to meet her family, their first reaction was shock, and then relief. They were expecting a long-haired barefoot hippie. After all, I was from New Orleans, and everyone in Shreveport (my relatives included) knew exactly what New Orleans was about.

Instead, in walked Joe Frat. I was likely wearing my standard school uniform – white dress shirt, blue jeans, wing-tip dress shoes.

When I brought her home to meet my parents, she shocked my mother. She brought a hostess gift. I had brought girls home before, but none of them had brought a hostess gift.

My father knew this was the one.

I graduated in May. The day after graduation, I drove her to the Baton Rouge Greyhound bus station for the ride to Shreveport. I can remember us sitting on the curb across the street from the station.

Part of me was making the drive to Beaumont, Texas, to start my new job the next day with the Enterprise newspaper.

Part of me was getting ready to board a bus for Shreveport. We were going to be mostly apart for three months.

I learned the drive from Beaumont to Shreveport. I think I could still find the way. My first apartment was part of a large complex of apartment buildings. I called them the posh Northway-Gaylynn Luxury Apartments. They were neither posh nor luxury. But there were clean, if old. And furnished, since I couldn't afford to buy any furniture. The first piece of furniture I would buy was a Lane sweetheart chest, spending $98 plus tax. I was making $125 a week.

We still have the sweetheart chest.

We must have been idiots.

But I would do it all over again.

Over at Faith Barista, Bonnie Gray is hosting a blog link-up on “love.” To see other posts, please visit Faith Barista.

Photograph: The two idiots sometime after 1973, like 35 years after 1973 – at their oldest’s son wedding in 2008.

The Valentine’s Day That Mattered

I first saw her in a college newsroom. She was seated, waiting like a new reporter to talk to the managing editor. “I’m Janet Lowrey,” she said. “Do you have anything for me to do?”

I did: a story on the new chemistry building. And off she went.

Student reporters could request beats to cover, but the final decisions for assignments rested with the managing editor. Every reporter – every single reporter – requested the student government beat. It was the source for numerous stories because of Student Assembly meetings, controversies and the spring elections. She asked for it, too.

She was one of the five students in the reporting class identified by the professor who taught it as the best writers in the class. In addition to student government, she also asked for the religion beat.

She was the only reporter who asked for the religion beat. I was surprised (who would want to cover religion?), but ended up giving her both the beats she requested.

Her requests and my decision changed both of our lives. I could draw a straight line from Janet Lowrey writing “student government and religion” on the request form to my becoming a Christian weeks later.

By the time Valentine’s Day rolled around, we were dating. I decided on flowers, and had them delivered to her dorm: red carnations and a single blue iris.

That afternoon, through the big picture window of the newsroom behind my desk, I saw her coming on the sidewalk across the street. She was beaming, and she was carrying something, which turned out to be my Valentine’s Day present – the soundtrack album for Godspell. The flowers long ago turned to dust (although she did take a few pictures). I still have the album with its red , black and white cover.

Eight months after we met, we were married. It will be 39 years in August.

Today, when I see her smile, when I watch her dance with our grandson, when she gets that perplexed look on her face, and when I hear her pray, I see the girl I met, and the girl I still fall in love with.

Somewhere in the words

somewhere among the flowers

somewhere within the music

somewhere between the sprinkles

   of a slight snowfall

it was born

it grew

it remained