Planted all those years ago,
Nurtured with care and toil,
It was brought from afar
To grow in our mother soil

Upon the 14th of the second month,
A prayer was said each year
The first shoots emerging then
Enriched by her falling tears

A memory of the sacrifice
Of her loved one’s life,
One consolation of a war
For the widow, a grieving wife

And so, as the decades pass
The summer’s scarlet bloom
Unfolds with bouquet so rich
And then in autumn, she is pruned

Now gazing on the little petals
Somehow they avoid the frost
I think of generations past
And all the waste and loss

An expression of our life
That flower was grown to give
Vermilion sorrow spilt in France
Dismembered that we may live

Now’s the day, midst our passion
I rend the stalk with one snip
Take it, my dear this crimson jewel
As I steady your quivering lip

So know what it means to me
As we enjoy our mead-soaked lives
I hand you a single posy
Forever yours, my sweet Valentine