Father Valentine

Thank you for winter sun
in a far blue sky
and for the yellow Sunlight bottle
in the window over the front door
of the mock-Tudor on St. Clements,
seen as we walked our old dog,

my valentine, wife, friend
of thirty years of war, and surpassing peace, and I,

walked, slipped, descended into the
ravine of the padlocked lawn bowling club,
inched up ice to tributary streets,
then turned by the iced cream villa
to the vista of presbyter trees,
their branches aqueducts of the sun’s rush through breaking eyes
to the heart.

To T
From J
14.02.98