Valentine's

Valentine’s Day is one of my favourite days of the year: all that scurrying, secrecy and a year’s worth of repressed desire being expressed through stationery!  How can one fail to love it?

However, as with all festivities, I feel it is best appreciated without the distraction of other people.  But, before I go, here is a poem for the occasion:

DO NOT FORGET TO LOVE THE LOVERS TOO

Sometimes when I feel melancholy and low

I go out and feed the lovers in the park

And, reclining by the avenue,

I watch the ducks go strolling two by two

And then come home when it gets dark.

They have been in the park now many a day,

Those longing lovers who mutter “Welladay!”

So they are grateful for my snacks.

For it turns out a bitter thing, this sex,

And far more complicated than anyone ever expects.

“One cannot live long on love alone,”

I tell the lovers, “nor can one sup on sighs,

Nor feed too deep on your beloved’s peerless eyes.

If it’s food you want, you should go on home.”

But the pallid, lingering lovers make no reply.  “Alack!”

They sigh, “Alack!  Ah, woe betide!  Alas!  Alack!”

Apart from toast, they need no solace;

To my good advice, they are oblivious.

It is like water off a lover’s back.