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 

To My (Michaelmas) Friends Valentine

It took me long enough

To find out something definite

About my life and world

And though you all are shy 

About honors I want

To honor you my friends

It makes me feel I might

Have achieved something

Just to be in your company

We all suffer the delusion

Of aloneness in the struggle

To make something of ourselves

Something worthy

Of true friendship

Abidingly 

Left Behind Valentine

A little patch of moonlight

Fallen on some stones

In the shape of a cup

Or it could be a shield

A shadow like a sword

Falling across it 

When the moon

Divorced the earth

She took all her jewelry

With her but she left

This bracelet behind

Fallen on stones 

In her haste

Half out of her mind 

Debtor's Valentine

I omitted my sins of omission

In the audit of my soul 

My accountant sent me back

To the enormity of my debt

Hidden in the things

I did not do and now regret

Things I left unsaid

Out of indifference or shame

How make amends 

For what could have been

Fill back in the gaps

Where the light went missing

Still grateful for the debt

I struggle to repay 

September Valentine

The gospels these days

Are all about healing

The blind and the deaf one

Who calls out in the crowd

But what I don't understand

Is how they all didn't

Beg for mercy right then

When they had a chance 

To reach out to him

In the flesh which I

Would I have done

If I call out to him today

As it was in the future

And will be in the past

Only love will last 

Here Valentine

It is still Uriel who passes

The sword of summer

To Michael at the changing

Of the guard in late September

Here in the desert

Fall is the spring we live for

We plant tomatoes 

That will ripen by Christmas 

When all the fields turn

A sempiternal green 

And we can drive out 

To the hills to see 

Our wasteland blooming 

If I Stand Valentine

If I stand

Half in sunlight

Half in shadow 

With a line that passes

Cleaving me in two

Can I feel the balance-

Point for those few seconds

When the soul is still

And the body trembles

Time hovers there

Waiting to resume

A little eternity

Seeps through

Carried by the moon 

Worlds Valentine

The gods are painters

The gods are mechanics

The gods are physicists

The gods are architects

The gods are varied

The gods are invisible

The gods are inside us

And all around us

The gods are caretakers

The gods are story-tellers

 How much the gods 

Want us to be gods 

Worlds of them 

Hauling us in like fish 

Arranging us like stars 

On And On Valentine

We saw the hawk

Swallow the pike

Turn it in its talons

So the head was headed

Down its throat

That same hawk

Flying straight at us

Coming to rest on your arm

Behold your mother

In another form

Her precise eyes

Her head leaning on you

When you sleep

Her wings folding

On you holding on 

High School Valentine

I got a D in Greek

The speech not the stories

But an A in Horace

Sublimi seriam sidera vertice 

Nor men nor gods can lift me

Who appears in Limbo

In Dante's Comedy 

Though he was Virgil's

Close friend and rival 

If I remember Horace

Stayed on the farm and wrote

His own pagan comedy

In which he played all the parts

Master of the art 

For Dante to follow 

Mystery Valentine

We need to have

A detective's attitude 

Toward the world sometimes

Calm and observant

Following the clues

How things are set up

To amuse and confuse us

While the murders flourish

But we know they want

Desperately to be found

And hurry on

To the confessions

Of the last pages

Where all is resolved 

Called On Valentine

When I was a child

All my friends were saints

All my friends were devils

Inside I was convinced it was 

St Anne who saved me

At five years old 

Crossing the highway

Headed for the beach

In my youth we wanted war

A little more than peace 

Time and peace aren't found

In the same sentence

Yet it is my youth

That calls me on 

Not Knowledge But Forces Valentine

At the opposite ends of evil

Stand the too much

And the too little

From the beginning

We made statues of them

And honored their requests

While the good went on

In the world unnoticed

Quietly and without fanfare

What proves its goodness

In being harmed

Learns not to harm

We carved on stones

For future wanderers to find 

Making Up Valentine

Down under is to the earth

As the earth is to heaven 

Where they send all their criminals

And a few saints to save them

They both want to be caught

They want to be reassured

There's someone out there

More compassionate than them

They take us back

To the scene of the crime

Whether to commit it

Or absolve it 

We're still making up

Our minds