New Year Valentine

Every year readier
For a better year
As if a hummingbird flew near

Whispering eternity in my ear

The whir of memory once
So clear now a blur and blear
 
Of burning fog in which
The world is lifted
Out of its enchantment
 
Every morning by some brave bird
Willing to risk its wings
For a few old seeds
 
While the cat sleeps under the tree
And another year
Leaps from me

Christmas Valentine

If your sister is a little shit
And your mother a mound of manure
And your father steaming excrement
 
If your father is the devil
And your mother mammon
And your sister vile
 
And you don’t even get a card
Filled with insults and invective
Or an empty box to open
 
To remind you of your heart
All the skin picked from it
Like ribbons torn away
 
Still call this Christmas merry
Only a heart that’s empty
Can be filled with light today

Solstice Valentine

Finally again for one day only
The earth comes to a total standstill
All the governments all the markets
 
All the churches shut down
Nothing moves and everything
Comes to nothing for a moment
 
People freeze in the streets
The end of everything is visible
That way just around the corner
 
And then the strange realization
Shared by everything at once
There is nothing there
 
Nothing to fear
At the end but to turn
And walk back again

Childish Valentine

In late December one tall dandelion
Gone to seed glows in the sun
At the dead center of the garden
 
How do such things happen
Inconsequential to millions
But the first thing I see
 
Its round head of white hair
Hoisted above brown leaves
Angled for take-off
 
It really shouldn’t be there
Yet everything’s been prepared
For the right breeze

Something about it

Heading for childhood
All over again

Walking Valentine

I keep coming back to the plants
And the trees surrounding me
As if they could capture me
 
As if I could penetrate them
Just taking a walk around
We could mingle our forces
 
But just to grow up isn’t enough
For a flower it must die
And the leaves go on
 
It must be the example
Of something embedded in the future
Something we share
 
And go out looking for
If we are ever
To come to love

Stoney Valentine

Three stones convene
On a sunny table
When a thought walks into the room
 
The stones converse like corpses
Or buried treasure silence
Holding their wrists
 
They were only children
When they had to start out
Not knowing where they were going
 
Burning lifeboats and nights
Under icy stars
Like shepherds without a sheep
 
All for the Bethlehem of America
Or to pay their taxes
To some greedy king

Unwritten Valentine

Lines in the sky
Lines in the sand
Lines in the face
 
Some faded away
Some were double-crossed
Some multiplied
 
I can’t tell for sure
If they’re underlining something
Or crossing something out
 
But now it’s gone and gone
Whatever was written there
Probably the final instructions
 
For enlightenment how to see
The rainbow from the other side
As the chalice of the world

Saved Valentine

If I look down I see
A lined blind page
If I look up I see
 
Leaves rustle a bird
But there’s this tree between us
And I’m not getting up
 
I’m lifting one arm up to the light
While the other one
Writes this down
 
Sometimes it’s a wave
Sometimes a salute
Or a sign of the saved
 
A bird makes
Flexing one wing
Then the other

First Valentine

As the leaves build the bulb
So the bulb builds the flower
The original marriage
 
The ephemeral flower
Just another way
Of bringing color to life
 
But what is this color
Broken light
In its death throes
 
Slowly taking up
A new kind of light
Of things from within
 
Can you feel it
I mean it’s just the first
Stirring of life

Desert Roses Valentine

This one keeps its leaves in the cold
But has few red flowers in the summer
This one sheds its leaves
 
Shivering at the first breeze
But is loaded with pale pink flowers
Spring through summer
 
Different sensitivities and positions
To the sun though they share
The same extinct mother
 
Disappeared into her two
Bulbous daughters
Her divided mind
 
Multiplying her kind
She loves me
She loves me not

Berruguete’s Valentine

Three days I stared at Pedro Berruguete’s
Almost surreal painting c.1505
‘The Annunciation’
 
It was as good as I could find
To staunch the flow of the world
As good as I could want
 
On the second day I finally noticed
The white blur of the dove
Up in the left corner and the single
 
Gold thread spinning from Gabriel’s head
I could feel the enormous respect
They both have for one another
 
But it’s what is there between them
And the central object of the painting
The 3-D effect of the light that caught me
 
Falling through the far window
Into the empty room behind them
Like the sun into her womb

Sacrilegious Valentine

She gasped at the altar
Dropping the F-bomb
To her own chagrin
 
Immediately she threw a kiss
At the picture of the Savior
Furious with her sin
 
To bring the dirt of the world
Into this holy place
Defile the peace
 
Brought anguish
Wrinkled up her face
She would have knelt
 
But that would only make it worse
But did the Savior wink
Or was that look a curse

Half Valentine

Your body’s only half
Of what I love about you
The insistence of our senses
 
Of what we share in seeing
Speech and touch
In this dark world
 
The beauty of what’s left behind
Always arriving right on time
Memory is so porous
 
But some things rise to the surface
Once your other half
Appeared to me
 
And I could see
What I love in you
Gleaming eternal purpose

Immaculate Valentine

When they could see
That your resolve was sealed
That you were really leaving them
 
When they gathered around the gate
And watched you enter
That fragile body
 
When the lights were dimmed
In all their houses
And the dogs asleep
 
When a dark chill fell
From heaven when the earth
Took up its will
 
To go on living I recall
How much depended
On a loving girl

Rosy Valentine

If my enthusiasm snags
On sorrow’s thorn
And my salvaged flesh
 
Seems all I own
The abyss of being nothing
I must cross
 
To where the rose is weaving
In the roots
A whole new rose
 
Seems far from here
In the darkness
Of the glistening earth
 
Not dead but buried
Cooked and eaten
By some passing god

Imagined Valentine

If still an amateur of the imagination
If not his only lover
If not for him as he appeared to me
 
In his human costume
We soon disrobed
We accepted the perfection
 
Of the body we could tell
Our souls weren’t nearly ready yet
For the advancing resurrection
 
But we could see how it was
Being made up slowly composed
Sketch after sketch
 
Our bodies one
More stretch
Of the imagination

Moon’s Valentine

The last will and testament of the moon
Is being torn up again
To be carefully rewritten
 
But not carefully enough apparently
The dog who cried wolf
The perfectionist of distress
 
Let me take the world
From this angle let me
Make your mind the aperture
 
And your heart the little click
Speaks the camera of the moon
The print I leave behind is you
 
But still you pull on me
And blame me for the tides
You ride when I am full

For Ages Valentine

Cold coffee on a cold day
An Atlantean light
Pervades the bay I dream
 
Is resting on your eyes
A world of every luster of gray
The calm despair of a few boats
 
Abandoned on the wavering shore
The sky indistinguishable
From the sea
 
Yet that’s where we met
In the fog of heaven
And must meet again
 
Watching the sun dissolve
Behind the clouded earth
For all it’s worth

Late Quartet Valentine

In the plant quartet I planned
One blank musician stands
With the others close at hand
 
In articulate silence forever
Fingers at the ready
Always about to begin
 
Or as if the music has just ended
And they freeze in place
The last note enveloping them still
 
As if what they play enchants them
And whatever the music wants
They have decided to become
 
That cello of white going yellow
Advancing some theme at the edges
Its leit-motif of green

Blessed Valentine

In his last great work
‘The Hummingbird Wars’
The story of his early years
 
Which he wrote in blindness
Transcribing only what he heard
From the birds flying in his head
 
Philo the final tragedian
Often speaks of his mother
A bride and widow on the same day
 
But already pregnant with him
By a strange incident in the temple
And always resourceful and dignified
 
Even as a young girl
Sensed the importance of his words
And knew she was blessed

Our Valentine

Stand up my soul I say
Every morning my waking prayer
I walk to speak
 
Come to me you lights
And animate my dare
To live another day
 
Fill me with your doubleness
My heart in unison
As my mind on earth
 
Give me your thoughts
Worth driving further
And forget not to put
 
Out the sign that says
I will return
By dawn

Not Valentine

After the sibilant yes of the day
The droning no of the night
The world can’t make up its mind
 
I love me I love me not
I love you I love you not
The truth circles them both
 
And working against our own nature
We aspire to a life of our own
As if the unreality of it all
 
Was just something to be endured
Like rain on a long walk
We insisted on taking
 
Just to be free to walk
Toward love or not
Or love is not

Strangest Valentine

My favorite caller again
‘Name Unavailable’
But I was peering at its pistil
 
Green and reminiscent
Of a broken praying mantis
Stuck in the middle of a pinwheel
 
The strangest flower in the world
My climbing passion-
Vine the animality of it
 
A lust so pure it proves
There is another life
Of five green sepals
 
And five pink petals
Though when you stand back
The overall effect is lavender and purple

Still Time Valentine

I found a grub in the house
Who was more startled
When I picked it up
 
Velvety soft and placed it
On a paper napkin
Curled like a fetus
 
Out we went to find
Where it could possibly have come from
Which twig it might hang from yet
 
If there was still time
To weave around itself
Some transforming night
 
A leaf or a cloud
O take me with you
Pale filaments of flight

Visitation Valentine

I snap back quickly
Like a watered plant
When you arrive
 
I thrive on the air
You breathe back to me
On a tossed word
 
Unfolding you
Clandestinely
The motion is so slow
 
While my leaves plump up wildly
Like conifers quiet in the fog
After a morning storm
 
There in the forest of you
Where I suddenly
Find my way

Nearby Valentine

The six-long-legged creature
Walked right into the lake
Of the puddle and stood in the middle
 
Of it drinking in I suppose or caressing
His image in the water
After his ablutions
 
Every hair in place
As he puts off shaving
For another day
 
The long beard of his shadow
Tethered to the shore
So still he remembers my feeling
 
Of floating alone in the sea
At three in the afternoon
An empty beach nearby

Highway 74 Valentine (for Dee)

I guess you’ll know when you get there
But it won’t look anything like
The place you just left behind
 
A hair-raising roller-coaster ride
Over a browned mountain
Through woods ready for fire
 
Near the summit I saw a beggar
With the fallen face of an angel
Whose sign said Give it up/for love 
 
I wanted to stop and chat
But the snarling dog he barely restrained
Entirely changed my mind
 
Down I sped to a pearly lake
Pale little houses sprinkled round
So foggy and pretty it all looked fake

True Valentine

I spy with my little I
My true I who never comes down
To this troubled earth
 
But glimmering and shy
Watches and waits
In the midnight sky
 
Like a whispering star
In the vast of space
So near and yet so far
 
And even when I cannot see its light
I feel its presence pull me
Closer and close to itself
 
Out of the darkest night
O I who would I be
Except you glow in me

So Far Valentine

The soul acting on its own
Can only get so far
Pursuing the larger questions
 
Even examining its own body
How easily it gets stumped
Trying to follow the blood in the veins
 
Back to its original idea
As a bolt of lightening
Held and moving in the flesh
 
Charging the soul with a light
That’s clearly other-worldly
Over and over with every breath
 
Until the soul reels and dances
Sensing something in its sorrow
And joy that cannot be grasped

Sojourning Valentine

Because you lived long in the other world
When the time came to settle in again
After many years of shopping around
 
Trying on the current eye and skin shades
Just to have a sense of what was going on
In the different possible locales
 
The big commitments had already been made
All the preparatory arrangements done
Leaving you a little time to look around
 
You could see how much had changed
Not much you couldn’t feel
Some clear compassion for
 
And now you’re leaving again so soon
For another long sabbatical
Your backpack full of love and questions

Walked Valentine

If I don’t speak to them
They won’t speak to me
The ladies of the morning
 
And the dark children who run
Around my yard before dawn
From whom I hide my dreams
 
Will return to being leaves
When the ladies walk their dogs
Around the pond so perky
 
Even the sun pulls on its leash
That leads me finally to greet
These ladies of the light
 
Who pass from each to each
Across the pond bright speech
Out of the murky night

Remembering Sophia Valentine

When we all stood so still
Because we were trees
Children planted in a circle
 
Little Jesus was sitting on his knees
And little Buddha and little Allah
The three boys from next door
 
With their baby sister Sophia
Who was so fat she rolled
Around the floor to the boys’ guffaws
 
Years later at the high school reunion
They all dragged back their everafters
And wept together like sad failures
 
Until Sophia showed up to all smiles
Still sporting that shining diadem
Her father had given her as a girl

Dead Valentine

You brought me an old paperweight
With a glass rose enclosed
Coiled round by a sleeping serpent
 
You said start from here
And carefully remove the rose
Without smashing the glass
 
Or waking the snake
Draw it out by degrees
Only using your eyes
 
Letting the roots of the rose
Slowly devour the tightening
Body and blood of the snake
 
As it rises up through the glass
Weightless and red
A gift to the dead

Ballast Valentine

Nightly blessed with the knowledge
Of you and the daily conviction
Of your presence somehow
 
Still I’m not sure what to do
When I get up every morning
And find you gone somehow
 
Back to the prison of your heaven
Where I can only visit you
And sometimes I’m refused
 
Permission at the entrance
And sit here in the sun
You’ve left behind
 
As a mere token of your love
With its little ballast of light
Against all gloom

Daisy’s Valentine

Crazy Daisy is a sweet dog
Of a girl I would see I said
You so remind me of someone
 
Who lived on our street
When I was a dog in Toronto
Homeless on Sunnyside Beach
 
Actually I had run away
Overwhelmed by the confusion
Of the dog they wanted me to be
 
When really I loved only beaches
And luckily there was one nearby
Even if I was only three
 
But tall for my age I crossed
Several busy streets to get there
Unobserved and happy as a dog

Animal Life Valentine

I let my kitty train me
To come when called
And explain this mistake
 
She says I’ve made a mess of it
But what else is new
She’d rather chew her biscuit
 
Little hard animal shapes
She bites and snaps
While I devour my cereal
 
The music of the morning
Which we often eat outdoors
Awaiting that marauding neighbor’s cat
 
Who comes to steal the leftovers
While the drama of another day
Spreads out in the sun before us

Perennial Valentine

In the old plant nursery at Baseline
Where the newborns are all balled up
In their little plastic cribs
 
Bawling their beauty away
I mean the magenta petunias
Are completely out of control
 
While the camellias go on snoring
I don’t think they ever really
Wake up to their potential
 
But way in the back you encounter
All the ones that didn’t sell
Like good ideas no one wanted
 
Like last year there was a run
On roses while the magenta
Petunias went right on by

Breathing Valentine

In the democracy of the heart
Matter is all that keeps us apart
But in a good way that insists
 
On each one being itself somehow
The thing you are becoming
In the evolution of the heart
 
Which moves down into the matter
Of the body hurrying ahead
Of the still-forming brain
 
In the physiology of the heart
Where the divisions occur
The recapitulation of a flower

Arrangement and the gasp
That sets it breathing
In the heaven of the heart