A Poem For Valentine's Day (a few months early) − 22 August, 2007
I am a lurker on my Alma Mater's creative writing list-serve. Occasionally I volunteer something chatty, but mostly I just listen in for who's doing what. When they talk about Larry's and Denny Hall, it makes me feel a bit like missing home. It's easy to miss home when you're three time zones from it. Why I contribute to the feeling actively could only be summed up with the following.
This week one of the list's members was trying to get a copy of a poem that David Citino wrote ten years ago for a special event. It's one of those things that David did effortlessly. An occasion called for a few nice words to commemorate the time, he provided those words. David provided a short six-line poem for my wedding nuptials. Stephanie and I heard them for the first time that December nearly three years ago. And when the list perked up with a request for the missing poem, I thought maybe I had a piece of it in the keepsakes we brought home from our honeymoon. David, after all, is the man for whom Stephanie and I named our son (to be born in less than two months now).
David Citino is the kindest and most creative people I've known. In his time, he gave his art and he gave his time. One never felt out of place in his presence. Nor unloved. He was special that way.
Mary, Nate, Dom, and Maria -- his family -- are in many ways like family to me as well. We played whiffle ball at family get-togethers. We traded baseball cards together. Nate taught me how to play the solo in to "Hotel California." I still think no boy will be good enough for Maria, because I like to play the part of the over-protective older brother. When I was back home in February on business, I got the chance to tell Mary that we were naming our boy after David, she was stoic and thankful and didn't shed a tear, even though she really had no need to keep up appearances amongst us.
Today, when the poem was found -- via Mary from a fellow list-lurker -- and I read it, I felt in some way that I needed to save it where my little David might one day find it. And, for that matter, whomever comes across this page.
Enjoy.
-----------------
A Poem for Valentine's Day
We are, together, a bit
of a problem: two who have grown to be
so much more than twice
what we meant alone.
We have spent two lives perfecting a way
to make us one, two hearts
a single cadence we move to
through the stinging thick of dark woods
in which two too often seems
an irrational number. Such
is the higher math of us: two humans
making divine music.
Only in the light of your eyes
do I count. To solve us the world must turn
to love, our equation.
---David Citino
This week one of the list's members was trying to get a copy of a poem that David Citino wrote ten years ago for a special event. It's one of those things that David did effortlessly. An occasion called for a few nice words to commemorate the time, he provided those words. David provided a short six-line poem for my wedding nuptials. Stephanie and I heard them for the first time that December nearly three years ago. And when the list perked up with a request for the missing poem, I thought maybe I had a piece of it in the keepsakes we brought home from our honeymoon. David, after all, is the man for whom Stephanie and I named our son (to be born in less than two months now).
David Citino is the kindest and most creative people I've known. In his time, he gave his art and he gave his time. One never felt out of place in his presence. Nor unloved. He was special that way.
Mary, Nate, Dom, and Maria -- his family -- are in many ways like family to me as well. We played whiffle ball at family get-togethers. We traded baseball cards together. Nate taught me how to play the solo in to "Hotel California." I still think no boy will be good enough for Maria, because I like to play the part of the over-protective older brother. When I was back home in February on business, I got the chance to tell Mary that we were naming our boy after David, she was stoic and thankful and didn't shed a tear, even though she really had no need to keep up appearances amongst us.
Today, when the poem was found -- via Mary from a fellow list-lurker -- and I read it, I felt in some way that I needed to save it where my little David might one day find it. And, for that matter, whomever comes across this page.
Enjoy.
-----------------
A Poem for Valentine's Day
We are, together, a bit
of a problem: two who have grown to be
so much more than twice
what we meant alone.
We have spent two lives perfecting a way
to make us one, two hearts
a single cadence we move to
through the stinging thick of dark woods
in which two too often seems
an irrational number. Such
is the higher math of us: two humans
making divine music.
Only in the light of your eyes
do I count. To solve us the world must turn
to love, our equation.
---David Citino
