Children's Valentine

With a grin of wonderment

She confesses how both she

And her husband were terrible

Defiant arrogant children

Where did we come from

To punish our good parents

And now she has seven

Grandchildren all under nine

She enjoys beyond gold

The mystery she says

Is how all those years

Of being a brat taught me

What we as children are up against

And how to love and comfort them

Allegorical Valentine

When their willowy daughter Love

Married Freedom the lawyer's son

(These really were their given names)

They fought and fought

Made up and made up again

Their upstairs neighbors Hate and Scorn

Banged on the ceiling to no avail

When Freedom was on a rampage

And Love would take him to bed

Or turn the music up louder

So they could dance and sing

Until they were forced to break the lease

One day in the rain last spring

I heard they're homeless now

Or maybe gone back to Greece

Occult Valentine

Yesterday Mars snuck

Behind the moon rising

Full and resplendent

To their rendezvous

Like someone coming up

Behind you or a bee

Buzzing around a blossom

So you stand very still

While it makes its passage

Emerging chastened on the other side

And from that theater of stars

Sighs of relief descend

That set our wolves to howling

In our world without end

Annual Physical Valentine

Stripped before a beautiful stranger

Young enough to be my soul

So this is what you've been up to

All these many lives she smiles

As she probes with artifice and skill

My every orifice and cranny

To find how far some darkness

Has gotten into me how much

Reserves are left to go on fighting

She smiles but she is not amused

As I resume what modesty I've saved

Getting dressed and slipping back

Into this my one and only body

Diagnosis mortal with immortal parts

Still doomed for resurrection

Caught Valentine

But one morning he was caught

In a sudden net of birds

Coasting just above his head

It is the end he thought

Just like this evacuation

The soul rushing up out of the body

And then dropped back in again

Sufficient miracle to grasp

Other eyes were fleetingly

Watching over him

When their eyes met

And he was carried off

A veil was rent and he could glimpse

The glory that would shatter him

Hammering Away Valentine

Happily his little radio sings

Love songs in foreign languages

While the lonely carpenter

Slowly rebuilds the world

From the last few trees and birds

Resting quietly at noon to enjoy

His mother's delicious sandwiches

She got up early to prepare

Never knowing when he'd return

Sometimes he's gone for years

Sometimes she wishes secretly

He'd give it all up and come home

But she knows how much love is left

When everything else is gone

Earth's Valentine

Smaller and smaller every year

The earth will finally collapse

In upon itself through the black

Hole swallowing at its center

Even now it's being peeled away

I hear the shovels digging up the graves

To plant more bodies in the news

The forests shunting to a halt

The harrowing implication 

We must let it all go

And build yet another home

Out of the nothing left

Take up a little dirt and water

And rub it on our eyes

To see it all begin again

The sun inside the moon returned

Whatever our courage can manage

Whatever our hearts can salvage

Lady Light Valentine

Light is a lady who loves the darkness

Then leaves it to itself alone

If that's the way you want it she goes

Then that's the way it will be

But think about what I said

I will come back when you

Have exhausted all your quarrels

The hard words you can't

Take back I will absolve them all

Every cruelty I will sever

With a bright leaf and lift

You tenderly in my arms

Who knows what galaxies we beget

When we lie down together

Unfound Valentine

How many keep rushing back

As if they'd forgotten something

They can't remember 

When they get here

No idea what urgency

Compels them to return

Unless uncertainty itself

The sense of something missing

That makes going on

Impossible without it

They stand there in the middle

Of the room stared at

By those who love them

Struggling to separate

Panic from wonder

The past unknown as the future

That something still unfound

Calling Valentine

I got a call from the Unknown

Who left no message but

A call-back number

Which I dialed and kept

Getting a busy signal

But it they she randomly

Keep calling me

And even when I do pick-up

There's only the sound

Of time breathing in and out

I pretend it's some old friend

From the other side of the world

Who saved my number

To see if I'd remember him

Lord's Valentine

In the end did I let you down again

But that was only my beginning

I kept posing as myself

Shifting ideas of who I might be

From one hand to the other

I have always been divided

And half-afraid of love

And yet convinced it is all

That matters the best thing

You gave to me I can see it now

Don't let my leaving be

The last thing to let you down

In a way I'm glad

We have so far to go

Epiphany Valentine

Already talking back to his mother

The twelve day old child looks up

From her breast to welcome

The wealth and wisdom of the world

Like any child he is amazed

By the magic they perform

And the stories of their lives

You can tell by his dreamy smile

And in the opposite window

A naked man stands in a river

Fishes for his feet his hands

Open to receive not a part

But behold the entire future

Epiphany Eve Valentine

There is in us a deep desire

To find something to adore

A body or a bird or a great cause

To which we can surrender

Always and everywhere

Separately and collectively

We have built an altar in our hearts

To something better than ourselves

To emulate and worship

With our burnt offerings

We seem to sense something there

That might restore us to our

Former glory we vaguely recall

To our place among the stars

Sign's Valentine

Two heavy volcanic stones

I rescued from the coast

One oblong but flat enough

To place the other on

In the shape of a fish's head

One oval eye embedded

With a gleaming yellow shell

A circle for a mouth

I set them on the wall

Above my wooden gate

To remind me of Jonah

And the rollicking sea

Here in the desert

In the belly of the world

Awaiting my delivery

Sprouting Valentine

I spy the past limping

Winding through the future trees

It keeps coming back

Showing up in the oddest places

Today I found a seed in my pocket

A tiny brown planet

Worn down by too many nights

Spun far out of its orbit

All these years keeping

A consciousness of me

I felt it held me in its grip

Longing to be planted somewhere 

As soon as I would find it

How much time we'd wasted

Hurrying toward the ground