Valentine for Ernest Mann
Valentine for Ernest Mann
You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.
Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.
Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the off sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.
Valentine for Ernest Mann"" Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2015.
Naomi Shihab Nye's poem "Valentine for Ernest Mann" is all about finding beauty in unexpected places. For example, the man in the poem thought the skunks were beautiful: "Once I knew a man who gave his wife / two skunks for a valentine" (14-15). The skunk shows beauty because the man "thought they had such beautiful eyes" , which shows everybody is beautiful in their own way (17). The man was serious; he seriously thought the skunks were beautiful, which was unexpected and his wife didn't expect it: "he couldn't understand why she was crying" (16). She wasn't pleased; she thought they were ugly. This shows the poem's theme which is everyone sees love in different ways.
--written by 5th hour
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