It is Reading Week, so, like my students, I am out reading nature. This morning, cold and snowy, I tramp around in a ravine I have not tried before in winter, slipping everywhere, ploughing through great drifts, turning against the wind. Long silences. Then, high up in a tree, a Valentine sound -- the bright red voice of a cardinal, darting through the morning. Is there a sweeter sound in February? I sit on a stump, pull out my binoculars. He is easy to spot, heaven knows, high atop a tree; but where is his brown beloved? Minutes pass -- can he be alone? On Valentine's Day? More minutes pass. He sings, sending his redtinged message in all directions. Surely such a sweet song will not go unrequited? I trek after him, like a lady on a subway train reading a Harlequin novel -- surely it must end well...! And then, on the last page, with my toes frozen, I find her, in a new tree, a few branches down. She is calm, sober, but worth every note. I stroll away through the drifts, leaving them to their romance, whistling the cardinal's song. Ah, love.