Brought Valentine

Death and birth

Only seem to be

Part of this earth

A body bestowed

A body removed

With varying times between

A curtain opens and you

Are pushed out onto a stage

And looked at by the whole world

Silent for your soliloquy

What beauty have you brought us

From that better world

Body after body

To feed this hungry earth 

Called Valentine

They call to say

Your mother's dead 

There is a bird

Singing in the yard

A little dying song

You both can hear

So raw and festive

You can't help

But sing along

The joyful dirge

Of her soul ascending

At the other end

Of the phone a song

With no words 

Whoever Valentine

I join hands with all those

Who are sitting somewhere in the world

Trying to write a poem

Though they might never

Call it that a few words

On a scrap of paper

Because something forgotten

Has come back to them

Overtaking them with joy

And they just have to write it down

Tell whoever finds this note

I surrendered here

I put everything at your feet

I await your glory 

Eager Valentine

If I think of each of us

Putting our daub of paint

On the moving canvas of today

Some beautiful some smudged

I start to think I understand

What the painter has in mind 

Filling in the same scene

Over and over again

Each one perfect in its way

But still something eludes him

Each one beginning as if

Nothing had come before

Earlier efforts stacked in the corners

Eager to sketch one more

This day of days 

 

The Rest Valentine

As usual they were hidden and left

For later scholars to exhume

The shattered mummy texts

Bodies risen from the dead 

Put into readable books

Of verses and stories 
They wanted us to keep

No idea of what

Would become of us

Reconstructing their lives

Here's how to make a fire

In your heart here's how

To sleep at night

All the truth of things

You'll ever need

Just fill m the rest 

All Along Valentine

I only imagine you

As you only imagine me 

Seen and half-seen

Some parts are missing 

I only know myself

As far as I'm becoming you

In the middle of this mystery

Who do you suspect

Has his hands on the wheel

As it's headed down this road

Seeking a deeper intimacy

Impatient for its time

When I to you am known 

Or was it you all along 

New Life Valentine

You are never missed by me

I take you everywhere I go

Though you have important things

To do in your new next life

And it feels selfish 

To worry about you 

How we're getting on

Living together in this

New intimacy and calm

Having broken through

Matter and time

Your voice in mine

Carrying me with you

Wherever you go 

Trust Me Valentine

A black cat I'm watching

Browsing grass in my yard

Then strolling off with an

"I don't trust you'

Look in its eye and I

Wouldn't either

Trust me I can't be trusted

Even to know my name

Or not drift off

Sinking into the ground

Or soaring off into the sky

When you come by my love

To hold me still

And still and stiller

In your trusting gaze

Leaving me amazed 

 

Or Else Valentine

Looking over today's agenda

Of unprecedented events

Emergencies emerging

Right on schedule

The world I am staring

At the world over there

Containing me as much

As I encompass it

I feel the basic smallness

Of us all might be

Our greatest gift

Our infancy requiring

Ever-caring gods

Or else we're lost 

Narcissist's Valentine

I've got to be careful

Not to become too much

Of a caricature of myself

An object in my own mind 

That unavoidable mirror-image

I carry around with me

Lost in self-reflection

And yet it's also true

I'm always thinking of you

Whoever you are 

We must find a way

To dissolve the world

Between us it is nothing

But a flimsy veil 

Waiting For Them To Bloom Valentine

When my cat died

After fourteen years

With our consent

The Vet sent me

A condolence card

And a packet of

Forget-me-not seeds

Little black holes

I planted in two pots

Enough memory to go around

If they push through

St. Francis has assured us

Of animals in heaven

When it all comes around again

They will ascend to human 

Endless Valentine

This morning's meditation

Should you care to accept it:

'Mind is always conversation'

There are always two at least

Two together endlessly talking

At first there was only one waiting

On a bench outside a hospital

Until someone comes along 

And all the talking stops

Silence listening for the sea

Time is the first to go

Then space trundles after 

Confirming your arrival 

Praise Valentine

To our masters

Time and the sun

To our midwife moon

Birthing stars

Which ones are ours

To all that sets them 

With such offhand precision

What's not to love

But how can it be

Taken and given back

My life my lord

After all these sins 

You're still at work on me

Still carrying me along 

Being Thought Valentine

Why thoughts fall into our brains

Makes me think of rain

Or snow falling softly

Some land with a thud

Rocks falling in the head

An avalanche of sorrow

Rushes past and then

The mother comes along

The mother of all thoughts

Who stares at me and dares me

To get up off that chair

To breath this morning's air

And be the thought you are