Valentine’s Day. A day for declarations of love. For gifts. For meals or outings with the person you care for.
Tonight, my date was a writer named Lisa and a group of people who were interested in learning more about poetry. For ninety minutes, we listened to prompts and shared the words they had inspired. While our themes were similar, not one poem sounded like anyone else’s. We differed in style, in length of response, and the intensity with which we wrote.
For our final poem, we were asked to use jargon to write about something we were grateful for. This task threw me because I have much to be thankful for, yet nothing came to mind. For the first time all evening, I floundered. I started writing and stopped after a couple of lines. I changed the subject three times. My mind seemed to be locked on the fact that the evening was over, and it was time to leave. And so, I wrote about what I knew was waiting for me when I got home – my husband, my sons and the table I had decorated before going to work this morning.
When you get to the end of my words, you can judge for yourself whether I did justice to the photo I had taken of the display on the table before I left for the workshop. Feel free to add your comments at the end of this blog.
And, Happy Valentine’s Day if you’re into celebrating love.
A Day of Love, 2024
(written by Natalie Bock, 14Feb24)
On the dining table
Love awaits
Tones of red with pink relief
Silver names on scarlet card
Foiled hearts
and pin art love
patiently pressed in
with fingers more wrinkled
than the ones that prepared
our first feast
thirty years ago.
In the centre,
an object of my desire
and your frustrations
calls us both
to the cause of the day
Hearts intermingle
scattered on Christmas cloth
laid across bare beige wood.
A Glorious Mess 