Elemental Valentine

No matter how long

You pretend to be the plants

 Or curl up in the piled stones

Burying summer under

All the plans you made 

Or weaving through the air turn

Your flowers into thunderstorms 

Just to affirm your power 

Reaching into everything

Your proof of magic 

Now I see you

Now I don't

But don't think I don't

Touch you taste you near 

Joy's Valentine

Nothing penetrates like joy

Against all refusals to open the door

All of a sudden it can sweep 

Into your lungs out of nowhere

Beyond all reason your heart

Leaps for the few minutes

It can tolerate so great

Expansion but no matter

How much you want it

To dissolve you 

You can't contain it

It moves out to fill

The whole forest with light

Taking back its position

In the sun and stars  

Laughter To The Rescue Valentine

It was his fate and fortune

To make funny happen

To lift laughter

To an art form

Anyone could practice

To expose our inherent 

Capacity for silliness

In all our serious games

To tear us from our thrones

Our complacency and pride

The joker in the corner of our lives

Who never breaks a smile

But leaves us rolling

On the floor sometimes

Rescuing our lives 

If I Do Nothing Else Valentine

My purpose today

Is to cut my hair

And wash it and scrub

My body clean

While my soul

Can only stand

Out in the rain 

To simulate the same

Desire to be free

Newborn and fresh

To start again

Just give me a minute

To put on some clothes

And dry my dripping soul 

Arranged Valentine

After a long courtship

For better or for worse

If worse to make better

We marry the earth

Even as infant kings and queens

We are spoken for 

One way poverty

One way riches

Things work out

So uniquely for each of us

We can only celebrate

What's common between us

Love leads us to the marriage bed

How can we refuse 

Orange Wings Valentine

Come rain

Embrace the air

Don't be lonely anymore

 

Despite so many flowers

Orange wings stay only a minute

Not finding what they want

 

What is the connection

Between two lizards

Circling on the wall

 

I seemed content

With the eternal

Until love busted in 

 

Come rain

Start me up

All over again 

Not Too Late Valentine

I am informed 

By unimpeachable sources

That the monster 

I was sent to tame

Turns out is me

Like you I at first 

Wouldn't believe it

But after some research

Re-tracing my steps 

I had to admit

How much my monsters

Taught me and the debt

I owed them only saved

By my late regret 

Far From Home Valentine

In the end I find

Myself a little melted

Overwhelmed but purple

With joy by all the things

I find myself wanting

I pull over to the side

Of the road by an old tree

Out here in the countryside

The rolling hills of heaven

To see if they're still there

Which of course they are

And this dying pine destined

To become an archangelic being 

And today I get to behold it

We together far from home 

Already Valentine

I'm full of anxiety

I won't get to read

All the books I've saved

Too busy re-reading 

All the ones I've loved

I read to recall and forget

What I think and hear

What someone else

Has to say about 

This our adventure

Across time and space

What they think about

This moment or

Lose their way and I'm

Left waiting for the sequel

Re-tracing my steps

Already October 

Discovered Valentine

A prize is given

For the discovery

Of a nerve in a brain 

Where a fear is hidden 

Its location waiting

To be triggered 

But the fear itself

How did it get there

Except through some

Immaterial perception

In the mouse's mind

That placed it there

For whenever it was needed 

As it surely will 

Somehow Valentine

In my narrow yard

Suddenly appeared

A wild garden flowering 

Where my tree had been

An impenetrable forest

Of colors out of nowhere

Broke through in the part

I'd let go and never got to

Finish finished for me

Somehow it knew

I would be here amazed 

To behold it 

Fall on its way

The killing frost

The broken-hearted child

Come again to stay

Another Valentine

There must be a hundred

Purple flowers to choose from

So why do its yellow wings

Settle on just this one

Feeding there for a while

And then flying off

As if there were no others

And later in the evening

Coming back to the same one

Which having had its day

Is dying all folded up

In a white shroud

Their seed inside

Saved for another world

Another field of wings

And purple flowers 

Then Go Valentine

After the roadside asters and

The brazen mums in stores

After the leaves fly off 

Like fallen soldiers off to war

And the soul is the only

Bird left singing 

Far out on an island

Still be be discovered 

Then go and stand there 

Under the crooked tree 

Let the worst be done

Loss find its rest in love

In purple asters 

And in brazen mums

Fall Planting Valentine

My willful spring

My summer full

Of feelings

My thoughtful fall

All come to rest

In winter's gleaming

Ice that catches fire

In whatever seeds 

You buried

Farmer of my soul

I remember you striding

Though the bright fields 

Coming home exhausted

In the darkness full of hope 

Taking It Valentine

As I've been doing

For some time now

Every morning

I sit in the sun

Or the gray of clouds

And stare back

At the world

I try to keep a respectful

Expectant gaze 

As if I was talking

To a child or friend

Love can't be taught

But learned she teaches me

To sit in the sun these clouds

And take it all in gratefully 

If I Wait Valentine

If I wait upon a god

It's because a god

Waits on me

More and more I feel

Our hidden collaboration

Unseen becoming seen

I trust it because

Of its wry humor

Throwing walls up against me

Or coddling my woes 

The trick is to find

Your god before he

Finds you napping

And joins you in the bed 

Still Unfinished Valentine

The opera I wrote

Took 83 years so far

To assemble and rehearse

Involving millions

Of players over

Several continents

And a quilt-work of plots 

For its single performance

To an audience of one

Sitting in the darkness

I remember the inspiration

For the whole composition 

I was having breakfast

With my angel and thought

I have nothing better to do 

And an eternity to do it