TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith and this is The Slowdown. 

Between Father’s Day and birthdays, summer is full of celebrations in my family. And I don’t think I’m alone in feeling like gift-giving can be… tricky business. When you find the just-right present for someone you love, it feels like a real triumph: concert tickets to see their favorite band, or a signed copy of a beloved book, or earrings that you just know they’ll want to put on as soon as they open the box. 

It’s a good feeling to stumble on something in a shop, or at a flea market, and just know who in my life needs to have it. But sometimes, I’m at a loss. What if I choose wrong? What if I pick something that doesn’t quite communicate my feelings for the person, or if I simply misread their taste? 

Just when I start to get into my own head, I remind myself that the cliché is true: It’s the thought that counts. It’s the care—the intention—that counts. When someone brings you a little notebook home from a stationery store they visited, or writes you a heartfelt letter, or makes you a playlist that reminds you of happy times you’ve spent together, you can feel the care. 

Every Mother’s Day my kids make me homemade cards and pieces of art, and I look forward to them all year. I’d rather have a handwritten note that says “Thanks for being so easy to talk to” than anything they could buy at a store.

Today’s poem speaks to how subjective gifts, like poems, can be. Sometimes all we need to do is see the gift through the giver’s eyes. We need to appreciate that person’s care and intention. Come to think of it, perspective is a gift all its own.

Valentine for Ernest Mann
by Naomi Shihab Nye

You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment 
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries 
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.

"Valentine for Ernest Mann" by Naomi Shihab Nye. Used by permission of the poet.