• Skip to main content

Aesthetic Realism Online Library

Home > Poetry > Poems by Eli Siegel

Poetry of Eli Siegel

The World Says, I’m Your Valentine, My Dear

Says the world to every person:

“I am your Valentine.”

And nearly every person answers, who hears at all:

“I want to be my own Valentine.

Besides, there are people I know

Who aren’t as vague and as big as you are,

Whom I can hug.

How can I hug you,

You unseen thing,

Just around, just around?”

And the world might answer:

“I’m much more beautiful than you know.

It is true, I can take a fearful form.

I can disgust you and frighten you, too.

And I can puzzle you.

And there is so much of me you don’t even know exists.

Still, if you’re going to be your own Valentine,

The real thing,

You won’t impress yourself,

Unless you are sure you like me enough.

I am the way to a person’s liking himself.

And if this sounds religious—

All real Valentines have something of the religious.

I don’t mind at all your being your own Valentine,

Because if you succeed, I’ll be there.

I made up a little song just for myself,

But since I’m talking to you, you can hear it.

The song goes this way:

I’m the world and I’m everybody’s Valentine.

And they’ll know it some day.

Right now, people don’t care too much

About the way they see me;

But I snuggle in your heart, my lad.

I’m within all of you, my dear.

There isn’t a girl and there isn’t a boy

Who doesn’t employ

Me to be all he can be.

There is something in every girlie and laddie

That hates me, for he thinks and she thinks she needs nothing outside.

So I sing this: Every girlie is the outside,

Not just the dim inside.

Every laddie is wide and wide.

When a girl was born,

I was there.

When a boy was born,

I was there.

My other name is Life.

I am your Valentine,

Thine, my dear, thine.

It was I who arranged for you to be here,

So I’m your Valentine, my dear.”

 

[February 10, 1978]

From The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, #790
(Aesthetic Realism Foundation)
© 1978 by Eli Siegel

Eli Siegel on Beauty
Author’s Bio
Anthropology & Aesthetics
US Congressional Record
Book Store

Stay in touch

Receive email alerts for each new issue of The Right Of, and announcements of events at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation.

Subscribe

Follow us:   

Contact Us Support Our Work

Aesthetic Realism Foundation
141 Greene Street
New York, NY 10012
tel 212.777.4490

Copyright © 1997-2025 Aesthetic Realism Foundation

MENU
  • Home
  • Periodical (TRO)
    • Current Issue
    • Drama & Acting
    • Literature & Poetry
    • Love
    • Mind
    • Music
    • Teaching Method
    • The Visual Arts
    • Archive
  • Poetry
    • Poems by Eli Siegel
      • Short Poems
      • Civil War Poems
    • Translations with Notes
    • Poets: Their Lives & Works
    • What Poetry Really Is
    • The Critical Muse
    • Critics Speak
    • A Celebration of Poetry
    • Poetry of Martha Baird
  • Books
  • Essays
  • Lectures
  • Definitions
  • Reviews
  • News Archive
    • Educational Method
    • Love & the Family
    • Art & Life
    • More Issues of Our Time
  • The Eli Siegel Collection
  • Aesthetic Realism Fdn.
  • Terrain Gallery