just a touch of pink to celebrate today. shelly looked like a pretty little valentine in her pink wedding dress and hand knit shawl. heath was a classic dapper gentleman, holding their wedding umbrella just so. much more to come on this creative and delightful pair. this is merely a valentine tease.   
          xoxoxoxoxxxxx

today i was cupid leaving a trail of pink shreds and glitter. felt my wings flutter as i entered the post office. bought myself a simple orchid in a red vase, just to say i love you. jon surprised me with chocolates and tickets for future hugs and kisses. went searching for a love poem. and ended up with something a little different. a poem about the word L-O-V-E or a variation of it.

A Variation on the Word Love

This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. we insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.

Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.

–Margaret Atwood