On Being Loved

There isn't a day of our lives when love doesn't matter. We are relational creatures. We flourish by love, giving and receiving it, by loving and being loved.

Many poets have woven words to express the exquisite gift of love. Among my favorites are  -
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning's How Do I Love Thee? Let me Count the Ways.
• William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116,
• Sara Teasdale's "The Kiss" and
• Rainer Maria Rilke's "Along the Sun-Drenched Roadside"

But for my beloved on this our sixth Valentine's Day here is a selection of lines from the Song of Songs -

How beautiful you are, my darling,
Oh how beautiful.
Your eyes are doves
You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride
You have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes

Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.
Look - the winter is past, the rains are over and gone
Spring flowers are blossoming everywhere and
the whole world is a choir.

How delightful is your love
More pleasing even than fine wine
The kisses of your lips are a honeycomb to me,
Every syllable you speak, a delicacy to savor.

Place me as a seal over your heart
for love is as strong as death
Invincible as the grave
It burns like blazing fire,
sweeping everything before it.
Floodwaters cannot cannot quench love
Rivers cannot overwhelm it.

I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.
Belonging to each other is a perfect Valentine.

Image Source:
Song of Solomon - He Qi
Bible Text - adapted from New International Version and The Message