Unholy War

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War is never holy
Holy is the warmth of held hands
Of a blanket given in cold weather
Of shelter found in a nightmare storm

Hatred isn't holy
Holy is the understanding nod
The freedom found in other points of view
Mercy and forgiveness of both enemy and friend

Fear is never holy
Holy is the sweet embrace
The touch of love bridging across time and space
The moving of one's self beyond one's prejudices

Killing isn't holy
Holy is the body beautiful
The clean, unbruised, un-holed, uncut skin
Of peaceful people

The hate and fear we feel cannot be holy
It is the barrier that separates us from our brothers
From the enemy we refuse to understand
From the friends who would be, if we would only let go of our assumptions

These feelings we call "righteous"
Are the indignations of petty selfishness and envy
The workings of the lowest, meanest thoughts
The thickened wall that separates us from our God

Take a Chance--and WIN Death by Chocolate!

Ahhh, Valentine's Day, the one day a year we think about love. Or about not having it. Or about how we hate Valentine's Day.

I understand, I really do. Love is hard. It's work, and it often doesn't work out. I've been really lucky, though. Twenty-two years ago (sheesh, but I'm old), the hubby and I had just started dating (Jan. 19th was our first day, if you remember, the Eve of St. Agnes). Nearly a month later, we were going to a party together at a friend's house, and I spent a panicked week trying to figure out what to give him.

Flowers? I didn't know at that point that he liked flowers. Chocolates? What kind of chocolates did he prefer? I didn't know him well enough to know that, either. A stuffed animal? Surely not. (I was totally right about this one--stuffed animals are totally not his thing).

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So I gave him the only gift I could think of: a poem. Yup, I less than a month after we'd started dating, I wrote him a love sonnet. And not just any old sonnet. A sonnet that said I wanted to grow old with him, spend the rest of my life with him. You know the kind--the stalking sonnet that would scare any sane guy away in a heartbeat (or a quick read-thru, anyway).

I wrote it on parchment, using my calligraphy pens, rolled it up and tied it with a red ribbon. And, yes, I gave it to him.

"Woah!" you might exclaim, "and he married you?" Yup. He thought the poem was fantastic, and he showed it to everybody at the party. And some people were actually jealous. Nobody ran away. Pretty weird, huh? And AWESOME, too!

Now, before you say, with that sarcasm in your voice, "Oh, sure, we're just supposed to take that chance--but what if we get hurt?" don't think for a moment that I don't know the risk I took. In fact, before there was the hubby, I wrote several sonnets--more tentative ones, mind you--to another guy at college. Yup, that's right. This was already my MO.

That interaction didn't go so well. In December, the guy wrote me a nice card saying he was flattered by the poems, and he wished me the best, but please don't write again. I was crushed, but I respected his request and didn't write another poem for him. I took the chance, and I failed at it.

But so what? Love doesn't always work out. But I still have those sonnets--all of them--the ones I wrote the first guy, the MANY sonnets I wrote to the hubby. And, even better, I have the hubby. And it all started with that little Valentine's Day love sonnet, which he still keeps framed right next to his bed after 22 years.

So, in honor of Valentine's Day, I'm giving away a copy of the anthology Death by Chocolate, which contains 6 stories of love and chocolate, along with a box of chocolates for your enjoyment. You need to live in the U.S., since I don't want to pay through the nose to send this little package out (sorry!).

To enter, all you have to do is chime in below, telling me your own thoughts on love and taking chances. I'll draw a name out of a hat and announce the winner by FRIDAY (so comment before then!). Also, today I'm posting in THREE other places as part of the Death by Chocolate blog tour, and each post is different, so check 'em all out:

Patricia's Particularity

Authors by Authors

Ink Spot and Roses

All three give you another opportunity to win the book (and some chocolates), so feel free to comment everywhere, including at my post on today's Death by Chocolate blog. Remember to comment for your chance to win! And happy Valentine's Day!

Verse Thursday--"The Eve of St. Agnes"

St. Agnes' Eve - Ah, bitter chill it was!

Tomorrow is the fateful day--St. Agnes' Eve--the day when young women, observing certain rights, can gain a glimpse of their future husband. John Keats, one of my favorite poets EVER, immortalized this day for me by writing one of the most beautiful poems in the English language using this tradition. His tale of star-crossed lovers still gets to me twenty-five years after I first read it.

These let us wish away,
And turn, sole-thoughted, to one Lady there,
Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day,
On love, and wing'd St. Agnes' saintly care,
As she had heard old dames full many times declare.

They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve,
Young virgins might have visions of delight,
And soft adorings from their loves receive
Upon the honey'd middle of the night,
If ceremonies due they did aright;
As, supperless to bed they must retire,
And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

Is it myth? I can't say for certain, but I do know that my first date with the hubby was on January 19, many, many years ago.

It was not a good date. He almost didn't ask me out again, actually, and I thought he was pretty quiet. But the next evening, with thoughts of Keats' poem in my head, I opened my blinds so that the full moon could pour its light into my room, I ate without speaking to anyone (not hard in a family of seven kids), went to bed early, and dreamed of my future husband. Yup, I was working at a store counter in my dream, and there he was, tall dark and handsome (as he still is after 22 years), with the golden sunlight casting him in shadow there in front of me.

A simple dream--just us talking softly over the counter--but it was definitely him. The next morning, on January 21, St. Agnes' Day, I remember pondering over the little dream, wondering why I dreamed of him, since the date had not been all that spectacular. Madeline, the girl in the poem, is shocked for a different reason when she awakes, for she was dreaming of her love Porphyro, but when she sees him at her bedside, he looks so different:

"Ah, Porphyro!" said she, "but even now
Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,
Made tuneable with every sweetest vow;
And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear:
How chang'd thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!
Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,
Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!
Oh leave me not in this eternal woe,
For if thy diest, my Love, I know not where to go."

And Porphyro goes to her, "like a throbbing star." No, really. And I wish I knew how Keats had written the poem originally, since editors made him clean it up a bit for readers. Even in its current form it's pretty, um, appealing.

Beyond a mortal man impassion'd far
At these voluptuous accents, he arose
Ethereal, flush'd, and like a throbbing star
Seen mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose;
Into her dream he melted, as the rose
Blendeth its odour with the violet,--


The hubby and I found more poetry, too. We had another date a week later--January 26. This time,  wrapped in a blanket outside to watch clouds drift over the waning moon, we both found our world tilted in beautiful new ways. As I reread Keats' poem, I cannot help but see the young versions of us here. My parents didn't approve of us, but we've still made it through all these years, and my feelings are even deeper than they used to be. We were the Romeo and Juliet who made it, who found courage and devotion could make more drastic measures unnecessary.

Like Porphyro and Madeline, we just moved on together, making a life for each other:

And they are gone: aye, ages long ago
These lovers fled away into the storm.

Keats wrote no poem about the world they created together somewhere else. I don't need it, though. The hubby and I have made that world all on our own.

(Excerpts courtesy of Poetry Online)

Mothering

"The Bath" by Mary Cassatt

Decades ago

One mother

Left me

Choosing some form of righteous path

Abandoning the straining fibers linking

Her to me

Snipping every tendon separate.

I could feel lost

But other mothers

Found me

Fed me with caring

Showed me what love is

Sewed together the ties that had been torn

To themselves

And made me whole again

Mothers of their own choosing

They picked me

And so many others in need

To encourage and help

With smiles and pats and advice

And now

To follow their example

I mother

Not just the children

Tied to me through biology

But all the others

Abandoned and snipped apart

Seeking solace and love

In the embrace of another mother.

Whisperings

My play is calling to me.

Well, its characters are, and that means I need to devote the afternoon to writing (once my classes are over and I've eaten a little lunch). You see, my characters had been talking and interacting all night while I slept, and they gave me a rather interesting dream.

I dreamed last night that I was with a film star... though now the identity of the star escapes me. It's not the first time I've dreamed of film stars. I always pick the weird ones, too, the ones I'm not at all attracted to, like Rutger Hauer, Bobcat Goldthwait, etc. I once dreamed Desi Arnaz had asked my mom to marry me, and she was trying to urge me into it, even though he was really, really old (he died less than a week after I'd had the dream).

Anyway, I had separated from my husband and hadn't seen my two kids, and this star was trying to woo me into becoming his significant other, furnishing his fabulous apartment with stuff he thought I'd want, etc. I was holding back, cautious, wanting to visit my kids and husband, but when I went to our house (a brownstone in Chicago, a place and kind of house I would never live in, mind you), I discovered that my husband had left for Europe (probably in anger that I'd left) and the kids were living with my mother-in-law.

The frightening part of this is that everything was unemotional, as if I was afraid to feel anything about my husband, or this actor guy, or my own kids. I was numb, rather like the female character of my play is feeling. I kept wondering, while dreaming, what was going to happen to wake me up, and I realized that the only thing which could break me out of the misty funk I was in was my husband--his physical presence, his touch, a word of caring or recognition.

I woke up, and suddenly I knew what to do with my characters. They fell into place beautifully, and I knew that my main character had to know, in some real, certain way, that her husband wouldn't abandon her, that he'd be glued to her no matter how broken she was. Only then could she heal. If she thought he could get up and leave, she'd leave him first, just so that she wasn't the one left behind. And he needed the same assurance, that she wouldn't leave him like she'd left her own father, left so many other boyfriends before she'd met him, left so many jobs, left places and friends, anything that wore on her too much. His greatest fear was that she would take off, and he'd never see her again.

Heavy stuff for a morning, I know, but I appreciate my characters working through this for me, so that I could have the answers when I woke.

Now if I could just figure out who that film star was.

Miracles

I mentioned last month that my husband and I had been dating for twenty years... and it was 20 years ago that a quite miraculous thing happened. You'll understand when you hear the whole story.

Twenty years ago, Richard and I had been dating for right around three weeks. I was just about to play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and he was doing tech, which meant he was the person pulling me up in the balloon at the end of the play.

But that wasn't the miraculous part.

We were planning to exchange presents at a Valentine's Day party, and a day prior I still didn't have anything to give him. I'd thought about chocolates, about all the typical crap, but nothing felt right.

Finally, late into the night, I wrote him a poem. It was a pretty cheesy sonnet, and I won't make your eyes bleed by posting it here. But if I'd really read it then, I would never have given it to him. Three weeks in, I had written him a poem pretty much asking him to spend the rest of his life with me.

A scary thing to send a barely boyfriend who was still 18.

I wrote it in calligraphy on parchment, then rolled it up with a red ribbon, not telling my parents what I'd done so they could talk me out of it. I saved the poem in my coat, and then, when we were together, I handed it to him.

He opened it and read it while I waited, not breathing.

I know what he should have done. He should have shown me his deer-in-the-headlights look, folded it up, gulped, and said we needed to talk (or something like that).

But here's where the miracle happened.

He didn't run. He didn't get scared. His eyes got pretty glossy, though, and he didn't speak right away, but rolled up the parchment carefully and tucked it into his coat pocket. Then we reached the party, and not even five minutes later, he was showing the poem to everybody, bragging on me, telling everybody what a lucky guy he was. I saw several other guys get the deer-in-the-headlights look, but that didn't seem to phase him at all.

Not even three days later, I noticed the poem, carefully framed and glassed, in his dorm room right next to his bed. And it's still there today, on our nightstand, right next to where he sleeps.

The poem was prophetic on my part, but the grace with which he accepted his destiny--accepted me--will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Today, I am grateful for miracles.