Love Awaits Valentine

If anyone asks you

What you are doing here

In the middle of the world

Like someone lost and tired

In the middle of an airport

Stopped and standing still

The whole world 

Rushing past in both directions

Tell them you are just

Catching your breathe 

Looking into as many faces

As you can carry with you

Does it matter where you're going

As much as someone

Waiting for your return 

What's Next for Memory Valentine

If the evolution of memory so far

Falls into three long phases

Spatial musical temporal

Each of us given our own 

To sketch in the pictures 

Like footprints in the snow

We remember crossing our path

But don't let the future fool you

It says as it has done in the past

The future is buried

In a cemetery down the street 

From  us at any given time

The future comes like a tidal wave

And we are swept away 

Summer Ending Valentine

Let me presume to speak

For all the lives I've lived

When I say thank you

To all of you from all of us

Our annual summer reunion

Was brilliant even if

At times contentious 

Because because because

It went into the night

What life wants of us and

Would stars be enough 

Of an answer when we

Get back to earth

And our enormous lives 

No Pressure Valentine

I trust in the eternal fragments

Falling into my head like snow

Words I say falling asleep

I trust the darkness 

Will wind up comprehending

The light that wakes me

I think even in heaven

We need sleep no other

Way to dream this up

I trust you hear me

And already know

What's for supper

And have everything in hand

So it's all up to us 

Shoreward Valentine (for Dan)

Who hasn't succumbed yet

To something beautiful in their life

I mean completely taken with them 

Falling apart in a good way

Someone to behold 

Discarding our bearings

Prepared to risk it all

Who told you love

Isn't comical and frightening

Comical because you're in it

And frightening because

You sense its immensity

Swallowed and then coughed up

Over and over

Until you reach the shore 

By The Time Valentine

First you smell the rose

You try to take it all in

But it refuses to be summed up

Preferring to be painted

Then you turn away

And think about 

How it deals with time

The immense pressure

It's under to speak

Some comfort to us

Proof of what we once were

And promise of what

We promised to become

By the time the world is done 

What Did You Pay For It Valentine

On Antiques Roadshow

We saw the best watch

We have ever seen 

When you peer down 

Into its intimate workings

You can almost see

The cosmos whirling

The effect of the rubies

On the twenty-caret gold 

There are only a few of them

Left in existence

If we were to take it apart

To find out how it works

We would only destroy it

No matter how much you paid 

Held Valentine

If love is the true oxygen

By which we live and breath

As all our teachers say

Seems the only way

This can all make sense

There must be another world  

A door behind the mind

That opens on an abyss

Where life has a second life

Bodiless and keen with light

Vain philosophers like me

Just want to get it all down

To a simple equation

We can hold in our heads 

Paradise Garden Valentine

Unlike an herbaceous garden

With its winding blinding paths

The colors carrying you

A paradise garden

Reflecting heaven 

Is made of pools

Of shimmering water 

And the shade of trees

All of one species

Fierce granite lions

Guard the entrance

But the gate swings open

If you can stare them down

They only want to know

You're ready to be found 

 

On Your Assumption Valentine

Three rainbows appeared

 One in the lake one above

The mountains forming an eye

And one unnoticed at first

Just visible above us all

Except there is no one there

Unless you count the photographer

And the faces on the stones

Yellow along the shore

Would it be a sacrilege

To plunge into that water

To bathe in its colors

To disturb this peace 

With shouts of joy 

We Are All Atheists Now Valentine

There is joy in Joyce

And the dickens in Dickens

But I dream of atheists

Coming across the Bible

Overcome by the truth

Of its stories and styles

Overwhelming if true

We are all atheists now

Fierce for the truth we feel 

Better going it alone

As if we didn't 

Really need some god

To suffer for us

Caught in our denial

We will do it on our own 

Cain will be welcomed home 

What Life Wants Valentine

I think life at first

Is an equestrian sport

You're given a horse

To love and tame

Ride where it takes you

Round and round the track

Life makes us feel rebellious

Refusing to be ridden

It wants to take us back

When we want it to go on

But luckily death intervenes

To save us at the last moment

For a few moments

In another world 

Catching our breathe 

The Word Valentine

They say St. Francis

Kept a second Lent

From the night of the falling stars

To the feast of St. Michael

Every year they meet like this

To gaze out over the future

Francis loves to walk

And Michael can hardly

Keep up not saying a thing

Until wouldn't you notice

Snow of years is falling

A star is waiting to be followed

The great Now has come

Just as they said the word 

New Valentine

All the clocks in eternity

Go off at once 

But still the universe sleeps on

Dreaming of peace

Or peacefully dreaming

At least it feels that way

When I peer out into space

Who is not humbled

When the moon lays over

The sun a door opening

Then closing a key

Turned in the lock

A new era is entering

The atmosphere of the earth

It will take years to settle