Happy Valentine's Day

I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's day. Not that you have to eat candy, wear red, or play any particular coy games... but that you have a day suffused by love and reflection of loving-kindness. If you have the love and reflection along with the candy and the red, well then, so much the better. Here are some poems that speak to me of love:

Gathering of Lovers
by Rumi

This is a gathering of Lovers.
In this gathering
there is no high, no low,
no smart, no ignorant,
no special assembly,
no grand discourse,
no proper schooling required.
There is no master,
no disciple.
This gathering is more like a drunken party,
full of tricksters, fools,
mad men and mad women.
This is a gathering of Lovers.

Keeping Watch
by Hafiz

In the morning
When I began to wake,
It happened again--

That feeling
That you, Beloved,
Had stood over me all night
Keeping watch,

That feeling
That as soon as I began to stir

You put Your lips on my forehead
And lit a Holy lamp
Inside my heart.

Short Love Poem by Rumi

The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.