Posts Tagged ‘valentine’s day’

The Poetry and Color of Love for Valentine’s Day

February 15, 2020

Donna Warwick posted this digital painting on her Instagram artsfusionist: “Happy Valentines Day Everyone ! I Love Hue!”

Good homonym! This is so vibrant, like a beating heart! Can you feel it?

Hope you all enjoyed a Happy Valentine’s Day. Whether you were with someone or by yourself, Love Is Love. I emailed most of this content below for Valentine’s Day and decided to post it afterwards with some additions.

The Poetry of Love

For those alone, here is an uplifting poem reminding us to love ourselves: Love after Love, by Derek Walcott, resonates deeply when you first acknowledge yourself. Includes videos of him reading his poetry.

For those sharing love, [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by E.E. Cummings is a most beautiful poem about the intimate unity of the lover and the beloved within his heart.

And Emily Dickinson succinctly describes the eternal nature of Love in this short but powerful poem.

Since it was Valentine’s Day, again, I thought I’d mention last year’s post. The audio links have been updated: Dan Fogelberg’s song, Longer, and my 3 love poems complete today’s Valentine’s Day Show. The poems were written for and inspired by my muse and sweetheart Sali. The first two were written earlier in our relationship, the last one after she passed.

The Color of Love

When it comes to art, one artist stands out for me—Marc Chagall. The love for his wife is expressed in his art; his art expresses love in color. He says, “In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of LOVE.”

In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of LOVE. — Marc Chagall

This blog post contains the Canadian documentary film, Marc Chagall: The Colours of Love, and 2 short videos. They cover his life and work, and the love of his life, his muse and wife, Bella. Marc Chagall’s paintings contain beautiful colors of love and a joyful floating lightness of being.

These images are from those films: closeups from an early painting of Chagall’s then fiancée Bella Rosenfeld; of Bella and Marc Chagall in Les Amoureux [Lovers] (1928); and in L’Anniversaire [The Birthday] (1915).

Closeup of Bella Rosenfeld, Marc Chagall’s fiancée
Top section of Les Amoureux (1928)
L’Anniversaire (1915)

The Chagall documentary ends with these words about the poet-artist: “He has painted the unity of the universe in all things. His song of songs is really a song of love, like a bouquet of flowers. Marc Chagall’s light, his message, his life, has been a gift to us all.”

May Love Always Be—within and among us expressed in poetry and art.

— Written and compiled (citing sources) by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.

Dan Fogelberg’s song, Longer, and my 3 love poems complete today’s Valentine’s Day Show

February 14, 2019

Sheila Moschen asked me to read 3 of my love poems for a Valentine Day’s Show on her KHOE radio program, Let Your Heart Sing. This 38-minute show (#56) aired on Monday and Tuesday this week at 1:00 and 7:00 pm, and will soon go into her archive. The last musical selection Sheila played was the beautiful love song, Longer, by Dan Fogelberg (at 33:05) [Lyrics]. The 3 short poems, about a special relationship I shared with my sweetheart Sally Peden, complete the show (at 36:34).

UPDATE: The show also replayed the following year on Valentine’s Day, Wednesday, February 12, 2020 with new links on OneDrive and YouTube.

CELEBRATING VALENTINE’S DAY WITH MUSIC AND POETRY

roses_bouquet_3491

COMMITTED
a two-haiku poem

When the tide rolls in
bows of boats bump each other
tethered to the dock

With our ups and downs
we remain tied together
solid as a rock

~

This Quiet Love

This is a quiet love
One of simplicity and easiness
No complications here
It’s too late in life for that sort of thing
Just time to be best friends

~

In Our Loving Eyes

Some people are stargazers
We were soul-gazers
Looking in each other’s eyes

Windows to the Soul
A Self-reflecting mirror
Drawing us nearer

Love … looking … at Love

two_roses

World Radio KHOE 90.5 FM is broadcast from the campus of Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, and streamed live online.

Sheila had invited me to read more of my poems on other shows. She asked me to read another love poem, The Enlightened Heart, which concluded show #72. She liked my tree poems and asked me to read a haiku, Be Spring, poem IX in 13 Ways to Write Haiku: A Poet’s Dozen, followed by Willow Tree, a tanka from a tree’s perspective, on show #61. She asked me to read What do trees do? Something to think about, for show #70. And Friendship – another tree tanka for show #76. And I read Being in Nature: A Gift from a Tree for show #93

Some of my favorite love poems: i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings | Emily Dickinson succinctly describes the eternal nature of Love in this short but powerful poem | Love after Love, by Derek Walcott, resonates deeply when you first acknowledge yourself.

Added February 18, 2024: This Sunday, Sheila Moschen’s Valentine’s Day show was being rebroadcast on KHOE. After she had signed off, station manager James Moore came on air to share the sad news of Sheila’s passing. Her daughter had contacted him to say that her mother had passed on January 15. James spoke about her considerable contribution to the radio station. Sheila provided a platform for the many fine local musicians and poets. On February 15, The Recorder posted the Sheila Moschen Obituary.

I was shocked to hear this news. I emailed James to relay my surprise and to thank him for his high praise of Sheila. He thanked me and said:

Sheila was a joy to work with and a real treasure for Heaven on Earth radio. That’s why I’ve chosen to continue broadcasting her rich content.

She told me recently that creating the LET YOUR HEART SING shows was one of her very favorite things in life, a highlight, in fact. Her commitment to uplifting hearts and minds, enriching life, and focus on local creatives with timely seasonal offerings was always a joy to broadcast.

She will be missed but grateful to be able to keep her beautiful work in rotation.

All the best,

James

He later sent me an mp3 of what he said on the show.

Our Meditation Love Poem for Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2015

I wrote Our Meditation Love Poem, about 4 ½ years ago, and decided to post it now, for Valentine’s Day. I was visiting my sweetheart during the week at her care facility and wrote the poem and story behind it that Saturday, September 4, 2010, almost 4 ½ months after she moved in.

OurMeditationLovePoemForSali

I was remembering the meditation we had this week; my chest area filled up with a great inner warmth and bliss of loving you. Tonight, I was listening to Leonard Cohen singing his songs of love, and started writing this poem from that memory, that feeling, and also remembered the quote in the film, Tristan and Isolde, when he is dying and he says to her, “You were right—life is greater than death, but love is greater than either.” He was referring to what she had said when they first met, about following your heart, and that love in one’s life fills up what would otherwise be an empty shell of duty and honor, quoting John Donne’s The Good Morrow, where he writes:

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares,
And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest,
…..
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.

So I came up with this poem, Our Meditation Love Poem. I found myself writing a 17-syllable line, the sum of a haiku in 3 lines. I liked the flow and decided to make each line 17 syllables long, each one having its own internal rhythm and flow. I wanted to write 11 lines for some reason, maybe thinking there were 11 syllables in each line. But now I remember there are 17. But I would then have to write 6 more lines, and right now I can’t see it. I naturally divided them into 2 stanzas of 4 lines each followed by a stanza of 3 at the end. It seems to have worked well.

Related: See this for : i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings. This Quiet Love, a #LovePoem from Kenny, for Sally on #ValentinesDay. ‘In Our Loving Eyes’ a poem by @kenchawkin remembering a special love with Sally Peden.

Enjoy reading other beautiful love poems posted on The Uncarved Blog.

Blue Dragonfly—A Love Renga for Valentine’s Day

February 2, 2013

Here’s a poem for those alone on Valentine’s Day.

Blue Dragonfly

A Blue Dragonfly
Flits about the light-filled pond
Looking for its mate

Do you get blue sometimes too
Wandering the world for love

If you’re still enough
You may find yourself being
The one to attract

As sattva gathers the means
So love comes to those who wait

© Ken Chawkin
February 2, 2013
Fairfield, Iowa, USA

The best preparation to love another is to first love yourself. Nobel Poet Laureate Derek Walcott explains it beautifully in Love After Love.