This isn’t an easy poem to think
about. B.’s daughter, Martha, was in Kindergarten. He took her to school on
Valentine’s Day and watched the exchange of Valentines, and felt (like anyone
would) for the one tearful child who hadn’t gotten a single one. It seems to me
that a child faced with that level of rejection might never get over it, and
even if she or he grows up, becomes confident and accomplished, loved and
popular, renowned for her beauty and goodness, a sadness like that might always
drag a bit at that adult. If she’s artistic, she’ll draw on it in her poetry.
It’s a heartbreaking image. B. connects her tears with those shed for St.
Valentine himself, who may or may not have been the Bishop of Terni, or may
have been a real person, or a combination of two muddled through the uncertain mists
of historical memory. But public torment was involved. While there was nothing
unusual about public torment in ancient Rome, it was certainly unusual for the
sufferer. The story recalls those nagging anxious nightmares I assume everyone
has, about certain implements that morph into symbols—the noose, the guillotine,
the rack, all that kind of business. That kind of thing hovers over all of
this. Rejection and isolation in a child is an anxious business too. The key
line in this poem, of course, is “that pierced heart over there seems to be
mine) / this is my Valentine.” I don’t know, I do find it terribly moving.
Interesting too, the way the poem
is set up in the first stanza, with the mention of the twins meeting. B. had
two distinct halves—the knighted public celebrity, and the tormented manchild
within. The art is founded on their meeting on that red road, this stirring up of
the private giving form to the public persona, which drives the art, which
triggers the accolades, and which further separates the twins, though the art
constantly stirs their meeting and re-meeting. But they don’t mix or fuse; they’re
oil and water. They fight. It’s a crazy dynamic, and plenty of people have
found it strangely fascinating in the years since it all went down. It seems to
me at the moment that a cult of celebrity needed to be part of the unfolding of
that drama, because without it, all you got was everyday torment, addiction and
self-destruction. Ho-hum. Happens all the time. A brief spectacle of demented
emotional fireworks, like another public hanging in Deadwood or Dodge City, or
another crucifixion, but soon enough forgotten for the crowds used to such
things. Another heartbroken child in Kindergarten. The celebrity shines a light
on it, and raises it up for public scrutiny, and hearts start breaking, because
in the end, pain is real, pain is pain, and we’ve all been through it. It hurts,
and we’re not always so cold, even en masse, that our hearts don’t go out to
one suffering if we see her or him as undeserving. Even if he begs for it in
ways that seem shameless and craven. If empathy is there, you don’t judge such
things. It’s the hurt talking, and hurt may cry what it needs to when it’s
genuine.
You made the poem come alive for me, thanks.
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