Happy Valentine's Day

I hope everyone had as good a day as I did. My husband out did himself: Flowers, a beautiful statue of a couple embracing carved from willow-- in case you didn't know it, willow used to be considered a doorway between worlds according to greek mythology--and a card that played Forever Yours. He tells me when he walked into the gift store (which specializes in hand made carved items) they were playing this song on raido and when he found a card that played the same thing, well . . . The note he wrote inside was . . . personal, but just beautiful. Good husband. Very good husband.

My almost thirteen year old went to his first dance with his girlfriend this evening and had a great time. He told me about a little girl who was--in his words--"disfigured." Her face "didn't work right" and she had a speech impediment; you had to listen closely to her in order to understand her.

"No one would dance with her," he said.

"So what did you do?" I asked.

He shrugged and answered matter-of-factly, "Samantha and I circle danced with her."

He was incensed that most of the rest of the kids were giving her a wide-berth. "I don't see what the big deal was. Everybody should have a good time at something like that. How somebody looks shouldn't matter."

Thank God. One of my goals as a mother and one of those people who was often on the outside as a kid, is to raise kind people who think just like that. We are on track. That was a great Valentine's Day present.

I also received the awaited poetry books in the mail from Scotty! Very way cool books. One is a chapbook of his work and I can't tell you how exciting it is to see pages and pages of work from a friend--the good, the great, and the powerful all in one place. The other book was a big, thick volume of "An Australian Treasury of Popular Verse" edited by Jim Haynes. Of what I've read so far, the one I've found most powerful is a piece entitled, "A Returning Soldier Speaks", no name, just a serial number. I've posted the first stanza/strophe below.
A Returning Soldier Speaks
--VX115
I am coming back with a singing soul through the surge of the splendid sea,
Coming back to the land called home, and the love that used to be;
I am coming back through a flash of spray, through a conquered tempest's hum,
I am coming back. I am coming back-God! Do I want to come?

If you want to read the rest, you can go here. It's about halfway down the page.

I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of it.

As for now, I'm going to watch "The Last Mimsy" with my kids.