Promised Valentine

The hibiscus promise by Passover
They will have put on their robes
Of justice sprinkled with blood

Their bodies will be taken down

To shrivel into the ground
While more and more bodies
 
Flare up to replace them
Each a lifetime in the crossing
Of a single night and day
 
Even now barren eagerly
They do their part in recognizing
The urgency of resurrection
 
In which even the smallest leaves
Will have been swept along
In unworried affirmation

Far Valentine

The poet’s husband
Is the spiraling sky
Aren’t they often having a moment
 
Far out on the horizon of their love
Where the denizens of the deep
Reappear in dream formations
 
Swimming close above them
They were fast asleep
In the belly of some ship
 
The sky stays at home
When the sky goes to sea
Different places when the sun goes down

The poet’s widow

Is the starry sky
Is he not mourning now he’s free

Late March Valentine

Spring is what becomes each year
Of the gold and the myrrh
The wise kings bring
 
The frankincense of blooming things
Filtering the darkness
While the children sleep
 
Spring looks like their childish dream
Their last memory before the light
Of the invisible world dissolves
 
Into colorful flowery forms
The majesty of their green faces
Climbing out of the frozen earth
 
How many springs will it take
For us children to make
A truly risen spring

Windy Valentine

I have a deep respect for dust
I let it lie on floors and tables
It looks so comfortable at rest
 
Not like sunlight falling on old fields
Anxious for new growth
Weaving into the darker places
 
The dust on what’s been left behind
Bits of skin fallen on pieces of furniture
Weaving over where light has been
 
The dust that covers the past
I like to get my fingers
Dirty with sometimes
 
This beautiful dust of mine
Which only a great wind
Will blow away in time

Original Valentine

One can only be saved
From oneself by oneself
A god’s accomplishment
 
Constantly one can be saved from death
But that’s not the same thing
Since death returns in the end
 
The original recipe for human
Calls for a long cooking
So the flavors can fuse
 
Though ensuring finally
A taste of each individual ingredient
It took so long to gather
 
One thinks of wedding soup
With a sprinkling of rue
One thinks of you who stir

Undone Valentine

If I sit down I just see
What still needs to be done
If I stand up I’ll run
 
Screaming from the room
Or go for a walk and park
Myself on a bench by water
 
I recite the psalm of the new leaves
Or say Kaddish for the old trees
Which says nothing about death
 
But praises the living who mourn
Not death but the trouble
Of being born over and over
 
I mean who picks up after you
And who’s going to have to
Get rid of all these boxes

Alone Valentine

So I talk to some so-called dead animals
Who roam the streets of heaven now
And one cat living here on earth
 
They remain optimistic and long-suffering
And share their loneliness
With the higher gods alone
 
Having always lived in fear
Finally they can enjoy
One another’s presence there
 
While we humans carry forward
Their concept of perfection
Their sense of something missing here
 
And not to have to hunt for love
But to find it in the lap of a heaven
As below and so above

Called Valentine

Through the black doctor’s lips
My pale angel spoke
You must die you know
 
Of course you forgot again
To take my prescription
To exercise your brain
 
And though you have a sunshine
Kind of heart you still love
The midnight spaces
 
Where the soul is like a parasite
On the body struggling to preserve it
Struggling to endure it
 
What can I tell you
My doctor-angel spoke
If you would be born again

Thinking Valentine

One can only be saved
From oneself by oneself
A god’s accomplishment
 
Constantly one can be saved from death
But that’s not the same thing
Since death returns in the end
 
The original recipe for man
Includes a long cooking
So the flavors can fuse
 
Though ensuring finally
a taste of the individual ingredients
It took so long to gather
 
One thinks of wedding soup
With a sprinkling of rue
One thinks of you who stirs

 

Roses Valentine

A bed of roses is the cross
And why we carry
Flowers to the graves
 
That on them the dead might rest
And flower into a new life in us
What we call memory or courage
 
That the dead are made welcome
To continue to live with us or else
We make them homeless
 
Imagine if you were a flower
No one saw
On the dead girl’s throat
 
Her personal flower
Which surely she
Grows into

Forced Valentine

Forced by freedom
To become kings and queens
In our own closed kingdoms
 
We still find a purpose in everything
Especially our own
Contrary ways
 
As humans we feel entitled
To a mass infusion of hope
An inoculation against the future
 
Our diplomats to the various planets
Come back empty-handed
They say life’s a gift
 
But only if you’re free to choose it
These first stars of spring
Whose love wants nothing back

Flung Valentine

Those minds intimately connected
With the cosmic evolution
Of the human earth
 
At their annual Spring-Fling
In the flooded river towns
Of the north and the Far East
 
Must have decided
To slow things down
In the mysterious body of the ground
 
But now the green time comes
They can hardly stop
Themselves for the beauty
 
Of their all-encompassing conceptions
Of unfettered time and space
With every star in place

Exchanged Valentine

I bet my troubled spirit
On my lucky stars above
And won the cross of love

I lay down on the equinox
Of all my fears and woke up
Eager to live again

I entered the wet earth
And saw there was another sun
Burning at the center

I could hear the gods laughing
As they exchanged horses
At the boundaries of spring

One of them carried his head in his hands
While the other one
Galloped off

Turning Valentine

You know how you can turn
And suddenly you're facing
The full face of the moon

The death-mask of a cherub
Rising to face the falling sun
Drawing in more and more of its light

The hills of his cheeks
And the oval of his mouth
As if he's holding the last note of life

But what goes on inside the moon
When it's east of the sun
Must be some crucifixion

Its light piercing the earth
Bringing these sweet nights
Of rain and expectation

The Year’s Valentine

It was the year
Of the three Easters to chose
It was the spring of Mars

Alone he stood in the sky
Like a stopped bullet
Circling his prey
 
It was the year when nothing
Could happen soon enough
The year of long delays
 
The year of the pig and the horse
Paraded out for all to see
The year the stars looked confused
 
The year we had the roof patched
The tomatoes planted
The year I held you close

Cornered Valentine

In that small corner of your head
Where you like to hang out
In the shade by the sea
 
Or by the long creek that flows to it
Through the cedars of your dreams
Where you are made humble and contrite
 
Where you have built three shrines
One to the wind one to the moon
And one to the roaring sun
 
Where your childhood vows are buried
With a few chipped arrowheads
And a ruby bead
 
In that dark corner of your mind
Where it seems
A light still shines

Trying to Dream Valentine

A snarling cat fight and a siren
Chased by a throbbing chopper
Get the morning rolling
 
And then the silence of many people
Turning over in bed
Falling back to sleep
 
Just trying to have a life
I dreamed I was in a foreign country
And all my luggage and my passport
 
Had been stolen as vengeance
For some other family’s loss
I was trying to get to the police
 
A taxi would have been faster
Than rushing through crowds
Of never-ending streets

Spring Valentine

A walk around the yard
Yields a crocus and the pound
Of nails going into wood
 
The crocus is a flower of the snow
The desert can only imagine
The way nails imagine the wood
 
Of real rafters holding up
An ever realer cloudless sky
With shopping nearby
 
No snow no crocus
While the desert fills
With purple and gold
 
Until it’s not hard to cross
Nails pounded into the ground
With crocuses blooming on the wood

Breathed Valentine

To be who we are
Is the distance we must keep
Between us
 
The illusion of aloneness
In letting one another in
And letting one another out
 
Freely breathing one another
So even the harm of the future
Is already spoken for
 
But just to offset it a little
For a few moments
We breathe in unison
 
We who have a life
The whole life
Of the world

Tongues of Wind Valentine

The torn-up score of the wind
The fallen music of the shattered sun
Grace-notes of puddles
 
The heroic symphony of the day
Getting back up on its feet
The oboes picking up speed
 
The angelic orders of the wind
Skating through yards
As the cymbals crash
 
And the audience roars
A tiny bell signals
Your train is arriving
 
The wind of the unspoken word
The death-wind howling
Wanting in

Relieved Valentine

I’m old enough now
My younger self
Can come to visit me
 
He prefers rainy mornings
And days when the weather
Turns on a dime
 
It’s strange how we don’t
Recognize one another at first
I mean it’s been some time
 
What are you doing here in hell
With me I thought
You’d gone on to college
 
I’ve come to rescue you again
Old man and relieve you
Of your knowledge

Before and After Valentine

I remember dashing off in school
Erudite ditties at the last minute
To save my brother ass
 
But I could not commit to criticism
Always winding up
Quoting the old poets
 
Who placed no limit on knowing
Or having or being
Who trusted the motion
 
Of the spinning worlds
In the welter of life would lead
To something even grander
 
Having been there at the beginning
It was not difficult for them
To see how it all would end

Lost Valentine

I fill the fountain and the feeder
And sit and wait for my glory
To return I remain eager
 
And restless and suddenly see
A woman in the figure of a tree
In the starry gown of dawn
 
She gestures to me silently
But then I see it’s not to me
But someone standing behind me
 
I turn and see a child
I cannot tell if a boy or girl
So emaciated and small
 
With eyes so lost and on fire
They no longer
Recognize their mother

Red Cloud Road Is Closed Valentine

What is the motive of the sunlight
With its hidden agenda
Of darkness
 
It clearly wants to be appreciated
For its sanguine nature
Having traveled so far
 
To have mortgaged us
Here in these niches
In the garden of our sister planets
 
Where we go I suppose when we leave
Our bodies ash in the air
Or plant them in the earth
 
To live among the Venusians
And the Martians fighting
Our way back to the sun

Inhaled Valentine

Now I’m sorry for each cigarette
Ne regrette
Ne regrette pas
 
If there was ever enemy and friend
Death puts an end
To rivals
 
But not the ones I smoked with you
Furtive giggling out behind the shed
That felt like true evil
 
How rural we once were
Groping the marvel
Of the body
 
And then the ritual
Of the striking of the match
And the inhaling of you

Thor’s Day Valentine

The further exhaustion of reason
Brings us to a further reason
To get past reason to something further
 
The lonely hope of the future
Despair waits at the end of reason
If no warmth fills it
 
Think of an inexhaustible future
In which reason loses its senses
In a wedding with the heart
 
The dancing alone has you dancing
Unto exhaustion
To get past reason
 
Like that Thursday I paused to watch you
Leaning against a wall waiting for me
Looking so vulnerable and strong