When romance writers are looking around for inspiration, we frequently look no further than the poets. Poetry uses 100 words to say what we take 400 pages to approximate. Poets wrestle the universe for each word, each line, each couplet, while we careen about with chapters and scenes and trilogies.

It isn’t my gift to write poetry, though I’ve taken a few stabs at it. My favorite volume of poetry is, “Sleeping Preacher,” by Julia Kasdorf. Julia was raised “plain coat” Mennonite, and this volume of her poems reflects that perspective, for both good and ill.

I turned to poetry for the sixth book in the Windham series, which features Lady Louisa Windham and Sir Joseph Carrington, her “Christmas knight.” Joseph is plainspoken, a gentleman farmer without pretenses or presumptions and yet, he adores Louisa and sees her for the complicated, brilliant, passionate woman she is.

On their wedding night, Joseph does not tell Louisa he loves her. Eventually he does (of course he does), but early in the relationship he will not allow himself to burden her with his maudlin sentiment. In the dark, holding his wife in his arms, he recites her a poem instead:

To His Mistress by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? Oh why

Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny

The sunshine of the Sun’s enlivening eye?

Without thy light what light remains to me?

Thou art my life, my way, my light’s in thee;

I love, I move, and by thy beams I see.

Thou art my life—and if thou but turn away

My life’s a thousand deaths. Thou art my way—

Without thee, Love, I travel not but stray.

My light thou art—without thy glorious sight

My eyes are darken’d with eternal night.

My Love, thou art my way, my life, my light.

Louisa is helplessly smitten, though she doesn’t say she loves him either—yet.

Has anyone read poetry to you? Has anyone given you a book of poetry that you’ve treasured all the years since? Are there a couple lines of poetry you’d have to work into any romance with your name on it? Valentine’s Day is coming—let’s hear a few titles, maybe a few lines of your favorites.

I married a genuinely nice guy. Former Spouse had a few quirks, like needing to go to the gym almost every day for hours no matter what, running great distances regularly “for the fun of it,” and needing to eat his oranges standing at the kitchen sink—nowhere else.

And yet he had some moves, some small traits that won my heart. Without being told, he figured out how to fix my tea exactly the way I like it, and he’d occasionally bring me a cup without my having to ask.

He held doors for me, and always opened my car door before he went around to the other side and climbed in.

If he was meeting me among a group of our friends, he’d walk into the room, look me right in the eye, and say, “Hello, Gorgeous,” then come kiss me before he said hello to anybody else. The other ladies in the room would sigh audibly. The other fellows would wish they’d thought of that.

He could tell when I had a headache just by looking at me, He said it was something in my eyes that gave it away. My own parents never picked up on this, neither did my offspring.

These are the behaviors of a fellow who notices his lady, who observes her and processes what his senses are telling him about her, and then he goes one step further and acts on the information in a caring way. And note well, it doesn’t cost a lot of money to walk into a room, make a beeline for your beloved, and acknowledge him or her with open affection first, before you start working the crowd.

It costs nothing to figure out how a lady likes her tea. It costs nothing to hold doors for her. It doesn’t take great intelligence, it doesn’t take youthful stamina or great moves in bed.

To me, this is one essential presentation of romantic love—small things redolent of insight and caring. Things I hoard up when I come across them so I might imbue my fictional heroes with these traits.

So… how did you know your sig other was a keeper? Or with the ones that got away (or were tossed back) what little things did they do that make you smile at their memory?

And watch out how you answer, because if it’s really, really sweet, tender or clever, it might end up in the pages of one of my books!