First Valentine

When thinking penetrates dreaming

We have the best of both worlds

The pictures and their meaning

Unraveling out of a fairy-tale

When we lived in the pictures

And the words were only sounds

Remembered and perfectly repeated

Before we knew what they meant

Once upon a time our first

Thoughts caught up with us

All our personalities appeared

In a row of trees or a lake

Just recently come across

Alive in another world

Aegean Valentine

Parmenides of Elea was the first

Translator of what is and is not

An old man when the young Socrates

Sat enthralled at his feet

Listening to his poem 'On Nature'

From which we have only left

A few tantalizing fragments

But if you know only one

Of his verses or have never

Heard of him or want to

Let this be remembered

He was also the first to see love

Was the oldest of the gods

And all the rest her offspring