How to spend Valentine’s Day blissfully alone

Poet and artist Frieda Hughes finds herself flying solo on the most romantic day of the year – while her other half flies around the world like Icarus

VALENTINE’S DAY 2025

On Valentine’s Day I’ll be alone. No armfuls of blood-clot roses,

Or boxes of gourmet chocolates oozing ganache and liqueur.

No dinner for two on a terrace overlooking a river that reflects

The arm-locked wanderings of would-be lovers whispering possibilities

Like the movement of leaves that scuttle the pavements.

No bottles of champagne for the reaffirmation of a relationship

That has survived fifteen years without a Valentine’s Day anchoring it

In the heart, or the mind, or to the wall of wishful thinking.

He’s flown off on his own for a week, not with the feathers of Icarus

But with Ryanair and hand luggage only, WhatsApping profiteroles,

The Portuguese sunrise and clear skies, where it is 20 degrees

With a gentle breeze. Here, the sun has not shone for longer than string.

I could have gone, but the clock in my head is ticking so loudly

That I couldn’t make the travel arrangements.

My October exhibition in London occupies the horizon

Into which I paint seven-foot trees in sunset orange

And pock-marked boulders breaking the earth at their feet.

By the time he returns, the memory of his holiday

Already evaporating, I will have created a woodland

That will outlive us both as we toast its completion.