Valentine’s Day is upon us again—a happy time for some, but not so much for others. It has been said that love makes the world go round, but what happens when love leaves? The world stops, and you wonder if you’ll ever get out of bed again. Your precious heart goes dark.

When I lost my faith, I thought I had lost the love of my life. I was wrong. I hadn’t. You cannot lose what was never real to begin with. Nowadays, I am able to see and feel more clearly. I can breathe without the crushing weight of dogma on my chest. The people I now know, I can love wholeheartedly. Of course, I try not to hurt them, but I don’t always succeed, and I am thankful that they can look past my failings. I know for a fact that I am nothing without their kindness and patience.

This poem is an ode of sorts. Yes, it’s for the ones I love. It’s also for the strangers I may never meet. It’s for those of you who have suffered on Valentine’s Day because love left. Perhaps you’ve felt despair within an inch of hope. Perhaps you’ve sensed pain waiting patiently at the door for vows to break. Perhaps old age or ill health robbed you of someone, just when you’d finally learned to forgive and accept. It’s fair to say that love is not for the faint of heart.

This reading was recorded with the accompaniment of a wonderful track by Kai Engel of the Free Music Archive. I hope it can help you in some way. I hope it can bring you some small measure of clarity. And I dearly hope love will find you again, that in the meantime you won’t let your heart go dark.

the ley of three (a firefly’s monologue)

i’ve been ghosting in and out of life
for a good long while now
your life, her life, and my own
i’m the conjuring lost at life’s murky end
and i no longer wish to delay
for night threatens to subsume we three

lone perforations in the dark are we
we’ve tarried here, for hope’s shape to beam
behind us and through
to propel us to… something
but it seems we’re not the stars we prayed for
nor the burning triptych others dismayed for

there’s a fallen saviour, dead in the night sky
and i think we know it
it could have clapped hands over us mankind
but chose not to
us mankind that had pledged not to lose our way
back in the good old days

so, what are we
a chorus of one, or are we not
are we some kind of earthen trinity
go on, you can answer me
are we a three-in-one rumbling spark
that shall never let the heart go dark

i’ve been ghosting in and out of life
for a good long while now
pulsing across the ley lines of our heart
linking the terrain ’til death do us part
mapping the terrain ’til death do impart
a silencing hand for all that lies below and aught above

and i said to myself, ‘if i don’t gain the world
then perhaps i might not lose my soul’
but do i have a soul, and i’ll die anyway
without faint recall to when and from
when and from we three embarked
when and from our heart sank dismally dark

there’s a saviour, dead in the sky
gone to be with a dead god
it could have clapped hands and sung over us
but chose not to
it chose not to reunite us in love, us mankind
at the cusp of a new day that was promised us

so, what are we
a chorus of one, or are we not
are we some kind of earthen trinity
go on, you can answer me
are we a three-in-one thunderous spark
that can never let the heart go dark

i’ve been ghosting in and out of life
for a good long while now
pulsing across the grey lines of our heart
without faint recall to when and from
when and from we three embarked
on our search for the day line of our heart

each day has been eclipsed by the day before
the past has been banished to the past
and mortality’s ephemeral scream
lost yonders have faded us beyond recognition
but who says we can only be here for a short while
yet the stars remain impossibly high (and we cannot be them)

there’s a fallen saviour in the sky tonight
at the right hand of a small god that won’t let us in
it could have clapped hands and brung us over once
but chose not to
we’re blood and bone, us mankind, the earth to till
until judgement day, these are the rules

so, what are we really
a chorus of one, or are we not
are we some kind of earthen trinity
go on, please answer me
the three-in-one continuous spark
we must never let our heart go dark

never

Text by TONY SINGLE
Audio by KAI ENGEL & TONY SINGLE
Image by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020