Well, it has come again: Valentine’s Day. Here is my tribute to this greeting card pushing holiday. I am sure that Hallmark cringes at the thought of all the homemade cards traded by school kids. Before the cynicism gets the better of me I had better put in a better thought.

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I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this, then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it, as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women, and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well;
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

Walt Whitman – I Sing the Body Electric – Stanza IV