Saint Valentine
POETRY FORMAT, 20 Feb 2023
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service
14 Feb 2023 – A whimsical poem to celebrate the love legacy of Saint Valentine, written by Marianne Moore 63 years ago, published in The New Yorker on 13 Feb 1960, dedicated by me to all of us who love poetry and dare to love love on Valentine’s Day 2023.
Saint Valentine
permitted to assist you, let me see..
If those remembered by you
are to think of you and not me.
it seems to me that the momento
or compliment that you bestow
should have a name beginning with ‘V’
such as Vera, El Greco’s only
daughter (though it has never been
that he had one). Her starchy
veil, inside chiffon: the stone in her
ring, like her eyes, one hand on
her snow leopard wrap, the fur widely
dotted with black. It could be a vignette—
a replica, framed oval—
bordered by a vine or a vinelet.
Or give a mere flower, said to mean the
love of truth or truth of
love—in other words, a violet.
Verse—unabashedly bold—is appropriate;
and always it should be as neat
as the most careful writer’s ‘8,’
Any valentine that is written
Is as the vendange to the vine.
Might verse not best confuse itself with fate?
— Marianne Moore
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Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary University London, Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fellow of the Tellus Institute. He directed the project on Global Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy at UCSB and formerly served as director the North American group in the World Order Models Project. Between 2008 and 2014, Falk served as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine. His book, (Re)Imagining Humane Global Governance (2014), proposes a value-oriented assessment of world order and future trends. His most recent books are Power Shift (2016); Revisiting the Vietnam War (2017); On Nuclear Weapons: Denuclearization, Demilitarization and Disarmament (2019); and On Public Imagination: A Political & Ethical Imperative, ed. with Victor Faessel & Michael Curtin (2019). He is the author or coauthor of other books, including Religion and Humane Global Governance (2001), Explorations at the Edge of Time (1993), Revolutionaries and Functionaries (1988), The Promise of World Order (1988), Indefensible Weapons (with Robert Jay Lifton, 1983), A Study of Future Worlds (1975), and This Endangered Planet (1972). His memoir, Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim was published in March 2021 and received an award from Global Policy Institute at Loyala Marymount University as ‘the best book of 2021.’ He has been nominated frequently for the Nobel Peace Prize since 2009.
Go to Original – richardfalk.org
Tags: Love, Valentine
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