Weekly Poetry from Poems for Free: A Valentine's Day Poem and More

VINTNERS KNOW THE VALUE OF THE SOIL

Vintners know the value of the soil.
A wine's taste is determined from below.
Love, like wine, takes sun and rain and toil.
Each may vary; the soil remains just so.
Nor can lovers choose the soil their roots
Take hold in. That lies deeper than the will:
In dreams, in loves long past, in lies and truths
None knows, but from the taste that lives distill.
Even so, the toil and the care --
'Twixt sun and rain, 'twixt seasons bad and good --
Sustain the passion, beautiful to share,
Destined to bring forth what joys it would.
All loves bear fruit, that take the time to grow,
Yielding most to those who patience know.

I PRAY FOR YOU AND WISH I COULD DO MORE

I pray for you and wish I could do more,
But more I cannot do from far away.
Like leaves before the wind we cannot stay,
Ripped dancing, dancing to the forest floor.
I wish I could your ailing health restore
And bring you to the strength of yesterday,
But all we mortal souls can do is pray
That God might alter what we have in store.
The beauty in our fragile life is love,
The only thing that makes the moment matter,
The golden thread that binds us all in light.
I wish, I wish I could your pain remove,
But like a wall the truth my will must shatter,
And so I send my prayers into the night.

I LOVE THEM BOTH, CAN'T HAVE THEM BOTH

I love them both, can't have them both.
It's tearing me apart!
My former joy and present boy:
Both have got my heart.

I have to choose, so I must lose
Someone I really love.
It feels like dirt that I must hurt
A guy that I dream of.

Why this must be I cannot see;
I only know I must.
Each might endure, for I am sure
That this is love, not lust.

I weep and wail to no avail;
I can't say no to either.
But if I can't tell what I want,
Could that mean I want neither?

BONES AND FIRE

Bones and fire,
Fire and bones:
We cannot look!
It will sear our eyes!
Even here is beauty,
The ashes of love.
To see you truly
I would have to die.

LEST ANGELS PROVE TOO POIGNANT IN THEIR PITY

Lest angels prove too poignant in their pity,
Inundated by redundant tears,
Not yet inured to loss that rends and sears,
Dream with them of that celestial city
Ablaze with love not battered by the years.

HOW DOES LOVE MATURE INTO A GARDEN

How does love mature into a garden?
A wild field, of course, need not be wed.
Pure pleasure tends the softest soil to harden;
Perhaps the heart requires that tears be shed.
Yearning blooms when it becomes a song,
A melody that savors its own beauty;
Nor will requited passion linger long
Not stroked from time to time by naked duty.
In gardens one defines where nature ends;
Vividly one wills the world to be.
Each swath of loveliness on love depends,
Restored each day to passion one can see.
Sing, then, of sweet desire turned to love,
And of the grace that does all lovers move,
Renewing in your song each day the vow
You never made more willingly than now.

HOPE IS BREEZE ACROSS AN OPEN FIELD

Hope is a breeze across an open field.
Anger comes from pounding on a door,
Positive one wants the door to yield.
Perhaps from this one senses something more.
Yearning is a song to wake the dead.
Very few can yearn for what is theirs.
Although love waits half-naked on the bed,
Life can seem a maze of doors and stairs.
Each soul pursues the prey of its desire,
Not knowing that to have must mean to kill.
There is no deed that documents love's fire;
In lovers' hearts, one comes and goes at will.
Need is a wind that strips the landscape bare;
Eventually one turns, and love is there.