| FIRST READER: |
(waving a card) It's Valentine's Day and this is just ONE of the Valentine cards I got today. I got so many, I didn't bother to bring the rest.
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| SECOND READER: |
I bet I got more than you. You didn't get many, you never do. You shoot your mouth off every year but we never actually see all these cards. I bet your mother sent you that one so you wouldn't miss out.
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| FIRST READER: |
How can you be so horrible? You're just jealous because I'm so popular.
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| SECOND READER: |
Jealous of what? Of you? You must be joking!
Look here she/he comes. I bet she/he didn't get anything. How many cards did you get then? Nothing at all, I expect.
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| THIRD READER: |
I thought Valentine's Day was meant to be a bit of fun, not the occasion for the outbreak of World War Three. After all Valentine never existed did he? Can't we just calm down? The whole thing is just so card makers and flower and chocolate sellers can make a lot of money after Christmas. It is all a con.
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| FIRST and SECOND READERS together: |
Get you! You know nothing! What did you get? Who would send you anything!
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| THIRD READER: |
I didn't get a card but I did get this.
(holds up the onion and the others jeer and laugh making fun of her/him)
And someone gave me a poem to go with it:
Reads 'Valentine' by Carol Ann Duffy
(in Being Alive ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe Books 2004 ISBN: 1-852-24675-8 p199
the poem can also be found online at famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/carol_ann_duffy/poems/8116)
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| FIRST READER: |
Well I suppose that is pretty impressive. Not pretty but impressive. It is certainly original and there is a lot to be said for that. Even if it is an onion! There is something in that poem. It must be lovely to have someone write a poem about how much they love you, to treat you in a special way. I got lots of cards but anyone can send a card or two.
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| SECOND READER: |
I suppose you are right in a way. As you say anyone can send a card or pretend they got lots but it is great to get a special gift:
Reads from 'Without You' by Adrian Henri
Without You
Without you every morning would be like going back to work after a holiday,
Without you I couldn't stand the smell of the East Lancs Road,
Without you ghost ferries would cross the Mersey manned by skeleton crews...
Without you there'd never be sauce to put on sausage butties,
Without you Clark Kent would forget how to become Superman,
Without you Sunshine Breakfast would only consist of cornflakes...
(Adrian Henri in The Nation's Favourite Poems, ed. Griff Rhys Jones 1999 pp52-53)
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| FIRST READER: |
O shut up! You just go on and on and on!
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| THIRD READER: |
I like this little poem that was written on the back of my other one:
Reads 'Baby' by Wendy Cope
(in The Big Book of little poems, Andre Deutsch 1999 ISBN: 0-233-99567-6 p37)
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| SECOND READER: |
I like that one, its funny.
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| THIRD READER: |
I think it is all too commercial. What we should remember today is not St Valentine, whoever he was, but the power and importance of love. You don't need cards or presents - even onions. What we do need is love. The love those who care for us have and the love we have for them. It is a day for being thankful we are loved and we can give love to others.
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| SECOND READER: |
OK I take the point. You mean we should stop bragging and boasting and just be thankful for all our friends and families. I'll go along with that.
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| FIRST READER: |
Someone got there before us and wrote this nearly 2,000 years ago:
'Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude... love keeps no score of wrongs; doesn't gloat... there is nothing love cannot face. Love will never come to an end... Three things last for ever: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of them is love.'
(I Corinthians 13:4-13)
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| THIRD READER: |
I think that is what I meant so perhaps on this special day we should not boast, or be rude or be selfish. We should not put people down but try to love one another; make everyone feel special just as St Paul asked us to do in the part of the letter we have just heard.
In a short silence we should think of all those whom we love and who love us. We should also think of those whom we find it hard to love and make the effort to see the good things in them.
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