Monday, March 18, 2024

Whispered Valentine

Like the climates of different countries
The shifting moods of the world-I
All going on at once night and day
What kind of mind is this
Hurrying us all along
How much of it
Is it even conscious of itself
This child genius of the planets
I try to hold it in my little mind
When it laughs or cries out
My feeble fingers reach
For its giant hand I whisper
For whatever it's worth
I'm here I'm here

Sunday, March 17, 2024

When Valentine

I'm looking forward to keeping
A promise I made long ago
When I get done working hard
Trying to avoid it
Perhaps it was presumptious
A little grandiose of me
Caught up in the moment
So enthralled by your presence
I didn't wreigh what I was saying
Something lost I recognized 
In you that I was craving
But maybe I was selfish
And too hasty and didn't see
How much your love would save me

Saturday, March 16, 2024

The Art Of Gardening Valentine

Can you tell the dead-heads
From the still unopened buds
Guess the grasses from the weeds
Or feel what the crocus needs
Or search the clammy woods
For where the blood-root feeds
On what the naked maples bleed
Just before they drop their seeds
Out of all the catalogues you've read
Can you assemble in your head
A flood of color in a bed
A summer ascending from the dead
Will you be satisfied to find
The last of the asters burning red

Friday, March 15, 2024

Bought Valentine

Came the day I had to decide
Whether to live in a valley
Or on a higher hill to take
Instruction from a creek
Or look out over the world
I settled for a woods
On a rocky slope with a
Working well and a shack
Two rows of giant spruce
That formed a kind of cathedral
Where I still worship now years later
Those first days I built a fire
And watched the first snow fall

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Something Else Valentine

Sorry isn't quite enough
To bring back the spring
Something else must intervene
In the heart's underground
That stirs the stones to think
They might possibly be flowers
That someday it could happen
And the dizzy flowers start
To dream that they can fly
Right up out of the darkness
Of the putrid silly heart
So spring can ravage them
With a whole new sorrow 
And a whole new joy

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Not Far Valentine

Every morning around ten o'clock
I hear a sound I can't identify
From not so far down my street
An almost human screeching
Briefly three times
The wail of a child at first
And then metal scraping metal
Loud and piercing
Like a mechanical bird
Or locked-up baby monster
The song of its rattling chains
But why three times only
And why just when the sunny street
Reaches its most peaceful point
Must that beast let loose its cry

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Driven Into Spring Valentine

Given the wrong directions
I found myself lost in the desert
On a road going nowhere
Run out of time to make it
Back to my appointment
So I just kept driving alone
On this twisting hillside road
The full sun leading me on
It had rained the day before
And the pure air was lending the desert
A luster that lit it from within
Great stretches where the original
And exiled trees survive alone
The loveliness and agonies of spring

Monday, March 11, 2024

Spring Planting Valentine

In a barren patch of ground
I threw some new seeds down
And placed four narrow sticks
In the sign of a star upon it
And poured some water
Salvaged from the rain
And watched it settle
Sparkling in the sun
Into the darkness of the soil
And having made my grave
I knelt and prayed
This new moon would unfold
From memories I've saved
A rising of green and gold

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Free Will Valentine

I learned to use God early
For my own purposes
While he learned
To use me for his late
He introduced me
To his friends and gave
Me fairy tales to eat
Lost legends that put
Me to sleep and harsh
Blows to wake me up
He taught me to be
Objective about my fate
While I taught him to wait
I was coming but might be late

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Loved Valentine

He knew four loves in his life
Two women and two men
But when it came to picking sides
Neither team would have him
And there were others along the way
Who fell in love with him
And would have given him their all
But he just didn't feel the same
Though he tried to settle down
Letting it all go on too long
Is it better to be loved or love
Without regret or compromise
Love's body and love's soul
Each struggling for control

Friday, March 8, 2024

Texting With The Dead Valentine

I spend the morning
Texting with the dead
Sending photos back and forth
Mostly to my mother whose birthday
Was yesterday and whose last
Necessary job was greeting
The bereaved in a funeral parlor
Though she was secretly terrified
Of corpses but tells me now not to worry
About dying it's been happening 
All along just another birthday
'I keep getting younger every day'
Signing off with a slew of emojis
And a link to falling stars

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Hazy Valentine

Tumbleweed buried a town in the east
And we laughed uproariously at the sight
Imagining a match thrown
And the ensuing conflagration
Elsewhere a million acres
Had been burning for weeks
And in a city in the desert
A huge explosion hurled
Shrapnel killing a boy
Which seemed paltry compared
To whole countries on fire
Elsewhere for the time being
Gathering on the outskirts
The sirens' keening not so remote
We can't smell the smoke

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Unwrapping Valentine

The gift of time at last
Arrives in a little box
I keep trying to open
But it keeps getting bigger
Until I find myself inside it
Working through the wrappings
The births and deaths of light
Emanating from the center
I think I will find there
My still-beating heart
Encrusted with time
When I get to the bottom
Of so many things 
And behold you waiting all along
 

Monday, March 4, 2024

Meeting Valentine

Some thoughts don't immigrate well
They get trapped at the border
Of consciousness refused entry
They spend their time filling out
Forms and living in tents
Showing up in nightmares
Consciousness can be a bully
When it comes to things of fear
It doesn't want to hear
From its hidden half
Like the elder brother a little enraged
When the prodigal appeared
All the lost thoughts gathering
And his father running to meet him