Valentine’s Day

At the silver hub of the golden wheel
that moves their yearly election
Valentines wait for Sweetheart Day
in the month of purification.
They long for its heart-shaped hours,
rubies pulsing on snow white satin,
roses a-bloom for every dearest,
February’s yearly oasis
for healing the winter-wounded.
Thereafter, love’s labor lost
on a winter day, Valentines vanish.
They clutch branches, skirt ravines,
fall into chasms that edge events
which time and tides devour.
And year upon year they keen,
“We go, with staying in mind.
Where is happy ever after?”
Misty-eyed and querulous
in an ocean of long goodbyes
washing the rocks of paradox,
they sputter, “What is this spoof,
a play of hearts as Blind Man’s Bluff?”

In time, mindful of their significance,
the constant spuming of its froth,
they meditate on the pitfallen,
range their bows and arrows
around a drafty abyss holding
the hollow heart of happenstance.
They deep breathe, chant, rhyme
to charm each other and stay awake
until, like leaves on deciduous trees,
they sleep and lose themselves
floating on seas of tidal dreamings.
The contrary among them delve
into matters of work accreditation,
tax preparation, health insurance,
pre-paid funerals, and the like.
A few nap, diet, or watch TV,
but most are less indulgent. Sworn
to faith in love, questers of the absurd,
most imagine extending their tenure
beyond its one-day span, concentrate
on circumventing the suspicion
that Valentines are an anachronism.

Legend swears they twirl on point
dizzying to an unbeliever,
balancing betwixt sad and glad
blessing the mess they make,
vowing to clean at clean-up time
for all future Valentinians.
All agree they are no more than
a calendar spasm, pretty periodic
pump-a-jumps, hearts to the tenth
power unleashed to smooch,
a mix of lovey-dovey stuff
less fearful than Halloween,
but a sentimental intervention
that could be dumped in a trice
were each left to his own device
and not told to scissor-cut hearts
out of itty-bitty paper patterns,
and fashion teeny-weeny arrows.
“It’s odd what we do, my dears,”
they say to one another. “Were we
jay birds, we’d toss our blue squawks
into the froth of foaming ages.”

Yet at winter-deep, freed of sleep,
they arise renewed; bend bows,
aim honey-tipped gold arrows,
compute the axis of fall over all,
and shake off lingering unease:
Are they turning the key of life,
or planting seeds of erotic strife?
Let fly arrows at chanticleer cry
despite fear of missing the mark,
but not too soon for Valentines.
Asking help from faithful angels
trained in taming time, expectant
hearts quicken, and images widen
thinking the thought of a Valentine,
the awesome pledge of love undying.
But every year in eventide’s shade
sightings show signs of goals unmet,
a day’s sun setting on hearts in debt
to targets a hand-span off, rogue arrows,
lost hugs, kisses missed. Alas and alack!
Mad and sad the ways of this play
that pierces hearts on Valentine’s Day.