Karen's Valentine

I bow to you dear Karen

Such a great spirit 

Tucked inside a tiny space

A whole community

Your work brought together

Gives you its highest

Recommendation to heaven

For being a herald

Of great possibilities

Wider vistas for our souls

You've left us in your will

So we know you will be

Sending us your love

As much as you can 

Turning Valentine

Every two weeks or so

I pull a trick

On these four flowering pots 

And turn them around

With their backs to the sun 

So we can get a good look

At one another and picture

How our bodies are growing

Bowed over and yearning

To get back to the sun

It takes us three or four

Days to stand upright again

And bring you water

So our leaves can go on 

In Case Valentine

Do you keep always with you

A reservoir of tears

Stuffed in your pocket

Or a good belly laugh

Ready to leap out

Just in case the world

Goes sideways quickly

Tears and laughter 

Are my back-up plan

A kite would be nice

An asterisk in the air 

Leading to a footnote

Cross over if you dare

I will be waiting there 

These Days Valentine

If we keep good notes

We can see how the world's

Suicidal ideation fluctuates

Not unlike the seasons 

Not grasping the full gravity

Of its recurring situation

We either cherish life or we don't

Still making up our minds 

These early days

Of our redemption

Still so much to be

Forgiven for

So much kindness

Still to come 

Our Lady Of The Subway Valentine

I am not psychotic she said

That's good because I'm not

Psychotic either I replied

Then what are you doing

Her eyes demanded to know

In this overcrowded madhouse

Whirling around us

Holding on to a rope

Holding on to your friends

If you have any 

I can still love you I said

Even if I don't know you

That can be our banner

Our whisper in passing

Why would love

Shortchange itself

When it can go on forever 

Reaching Out Valentine

It was when Lucifer

Started feeling guilty

In my soul too intelligent 

Not to feel his own illogic

To see who he was hurting 

When he finally woke up 

To the light he was carrying

He could put his hands

In the wounds from which

The light was flowing

He could try

The one thing he hadn't

He could be forgiven

The lost brother come home 

On That Note Valentine

In the Ninth Symphony

Of the self

When the composer finds

That one lost note

To go out on 

It fades and fades

But then he finds

He's counted wrong

This was just the Eight

Or perhaps the Sixth

What happens to a true musician 

When he loses count

He puts his instrument down 

Stands up and sings

In glory I'm going out 

Overheard Hummingbird Valentine

Something I want to sing

Before we slip away

Gone just like that

Everything left behind

It happens every day 

There's still so little 

We know about 

Our true inner lives

Our sovereign secret selves 

But if you let me I would like

To follow you into the future

Whatever becomes of you

I know it will be grand

I know I will be there 

Overwritten Valentine

What if all this is just a novel

We can't stop reading 

Inescapably autobiographical

But still fiction still romantic

Its writer restricted to a few words

Per day so he has us all

Suspended in his grip

Second-guessing where the plot

Seems to follow more than lead

But who is the pursuer

And who the apercu 

Rushing toward the last page

Which will never come

In subsequent volumes 

St Margaret Painted Valentine

I think Raphael only painted

Mirrors of the human soul

As he could clearly see it

He knew we would need them

When we forgot what it looks like

If you have to give it color

And the slow turn of a face

How the soul sits quietly 

In a field of memories

Surrounded by a dragon

Who brings us knowledge

Of ourselves our power 

Which Margaret has already overcome

And we can clearly see

How it's done 

Just Valentine

There is also the possibility

That nothing will come

Of sitting here in the shade

Listening to birds watching clouds

Like last night's rain

That never came

Still hanging in the air

And yet the stiller I sit

Wanting nothing more

Or less than just to be

I feel a peace come over me

Then I'd surrender everything

If I could just hold your face

For a few moments sitting here 

Among Old Things Valentine

If you're not too lazy

The best place to find

The heart of things

Is in an antique shop

Like the one in the corner

Of your eye on the way home

That museum of something

You might want to take with you

Somehow connected to what's coming

You might even find that sword

You've been so in need of 

The past is tempting

But who wants to live there

Quite a few it turns out 

Great armies of fear are

Ranged against the future 

And here is what is left 

Why We Dream Valentine

What can the night each night

Make of the day each day 

The Cherubim working overtime 

Confidently singing these days

While we sleep in and dream

Floating in the endlessness out there

And wake to find ourselves

Still here a mere microcosm

But of some other origin

Trying to fit love in

With what we take

Our secret agenda

Not to be loved

But to know we are loved

By someone out there

Great and beautiful 

Say Them With Me Valentine

How much karma is incurred

If you never speak the words

I love you if you hold them in

Or never get to hear them

Which I think accounts

For all the sins in the world

Or at least those not

Purely philosophical 

Like one's understanding

Of the words themselves

And to what and to whom

They can be entrusted

Even if never returned 

Still love must freely

Give itself away

I Keep Going Back Valentine

Remember where watercress spread

Along the passing stream 

And trillium filled the woods in spring

After all that preparation

You were born unfolding

Like a rose that could laugh

And scream this miraculous

Birth of all things 

To be held and cherished 

The rest was up to you

To follow your heart's rhythm

To know a rose

When you see one

To know you are one yourself