New Year's Eve Valentine

Aren't I the servant of my sins
And the lord of selfishness still
I pay at the door and come back for more
But back on the dunes of Indiana
And the shells on Sanibel Island
And the hills of Grenadier Park
Where we would sled till after dark
All the way back to Sunnyside
The years of hiding and laughter
Where the past achieves a perfection
The future could only long for
I still feel we turned a corner
Somewhere back there everything
Changed for the better

Eve's Eve Valentine

I know it's not a crime
Or even a mortal sin not to have
Thanked you more Mom
We had a lot to put up with
One another and you my father
I and you weren't one
And though I spurned you
It was as if you and Mom
Had picked up a hitchhiker
In the middle of a rainy night
What could he possibly be doing
And took me as a boarder
Someone always about to leave
For some impossible future

Holy Family Valentine

The mystery of having a brother
Or a sister or the mystery of being alone
Too important a decision
Not to have been a choice
To share the same sources
And yet be so alike and unalike
To understand and not comprehend
Our lives before we were born
What prior encounters
Must have determined
Our present connection
Were we lovers in the past
Or is that waiting still to come

Innocents Valentine

My sick cat listens to my heart
She puts her ear against it
And falls asleep dreaming
Of whatever's going on
In those four chambers
Even when I reach for my coffee
She doesn't stir but cleaves
To that dark rhythm
Like its her religion
Do not fear the lord is near
She keeps repeating in my ear
A new religion of the heart
We listen to coming toward us
But still a long way off

New God Valentine

What if we could unite
All the most admirable things
About each religion in the world
Into a universal faith
A new religion of humanity
But out of the vastness the smallest thing
Appears to be monumental a combination
Of the mountain and the mind
Our new God is incremental
In all things there he works on
Learning and striving to be God
Woe if he passes you by
But he is drawn to woe
And will come back for you

Snowman Valentine

Snowmen always remind me
Of those wooden Russian dolls
Always another one inside
How many bodies we hide
Until we come to the soul
The little atomic doll
Who suggested it all
The coal and carrot and scarf
Discarded in a heap
Waiting to be restored
To the image of a man
A man inside a man
Inside a man
Homeless in our yard

Now You Are There Wherever I Go Valentine

Yes we all have our private lives
But now even your public one
Is hidden from me I wanted
To send you a song you could strum
Learning to play the mandolin
About how we had no idea
Who we were or why
We'd been thrown together
When love embarrassed us
So we'd get drunk to fuck
The light was so bright
We had to dim it down somehow
And though that's gone love stayed
I still hold that body in my arms

Now You Are There Wherever I Go Valentine

Don't hesitate to suggest changes
I might make to my life or ask questions
Or say nothing at all
If I send you these lines
It's because I have nothing else
But love encased in such
Small words to give
So few as these
Cannot assuage the aloneness
Love requires if we would
Have a life together and apart
Letting the world pass through us
Passing through the world

Christmas Eve Valentine

One book alone proves death
Is just another form of dreaming
A deeper reading of the text
Rampant with new meaning
I read and read again
But all the books are burning
In the Alexandria of my brain
Ascending into the ether
From where they will come again
Who is not foreign in this world
Searching for his true family
And figuring out after all this time
Death was really his best friend

Feast of Adam and Eve Valentine

Among the rituals I love
Besides the rain and apples
There is your face
The sacrament of flesh
A rained-on apple
I tore off the tree
And gave you the knife
To cut me into pieces
And offer me a slice
Sweet rain and sweeter apple
It was love forgive me at first bite
They called it a fall
And they were right
As one by one we lost our children

Every Day Valentine

Every day is really two days in one
The one lived in some reality
And the one lived in some memory
Like night and daylight
Part of the purpose of each day
Must be spent reviewing yesterday
So little time is left for the future
The things of our creation
And destruction we hardly notice
How powerful we are
Living to remember what's real
Though we feel we don't really have to
It's all written down somewhere

Must Valentine

Must I grow old
To reach forgiveness
To want nothing in return
For my investment
In myself I lost
Myself selflessly
Must I die to find out
What comes after love
What it's really made of
When it grows old
And twisted ripens
And the seeds split open
What the wind doesn't blow away

Alone Valentine

The long queue at the feeder
Spirals up into the tree
Mostly orderly chirping
Until a fight breaks out
It's all about priority
And the status of the starving
And yet it feels convivial
A parade of fluttering
As if each one knew
They would be fed in time
More than enough to go around
As if they could subsist on these
Dead or dying seeds alone

Take It Valentine

The final gift of Christmas
Is a whole new year
This one has to go
It's been in labor
These twelve months
And only a child to show
Another mouth to feed
And raise another
Empty page to darken
Or illuminate another
Child's rage at having to grow
Or change but just take it
In your arms so new
And promising everything yet

Some Valentine

Some promises I couldn't keep
In over my heart and head
The first half of life spent
Managing the damage of the last
The other half planning the next
But I kept developing the idea of me
Until I could detach or cling
I could play the puppet of the gods
Or rule like an enlightened one
I swam like every swimmer
Between the depths and heights
But there were prayers I couldn't pray
And promises I couldn't keep
But may another day or night

Christmas Is All-Inclusive Valentine

The ones incapable of contrition
The ones who refuse forgiveness
The ones who can't laugh at themselves
As easily as they do others
The feared and pitied ones
Who surround our lives
The blinkered and beleaguered ones
Suffering from crimes of the mind
The sleepless ones who call out
To others to confess their sins
The ones who want to ruin it for everyone
Like that story of the two thieves
So moving to me the absolute
Certainty of the bad thief
Against the tearful confidence of the good

Night Light Valentine

The peace of a cold wind
That drives us down into ourselves
And spreads the snow across the snow
And pulls us down into the darkness
Of the depths of the earth
Where we dream like bears or wolves
Around the fire at the center
While the peace of a soundless breeze
Floats in the stars above us
And finally comes a night
Of absolute stillness
Where nothing breathes or dies
And perhaps for an hour
The sun shines through the earth

Freezing Valentine

I get to wonder now I'm old
About the race of men cold
Mornings when we spread
Odd towels and worn sheets
To cover the flowers from a freeze
Here in the desert
It looks like laundry day
And we've returned to the old ways
Of life as itinerant drifters
And poor immigrant farmers
Wandering in the desert
Seeing all our troubles come
From trying to settle down somewhere
And build a so-called home

Thief's Valentine

It's not that my life's all poetry
It's really mostly steadily prosaic
Quickened by the occasional panic
I'd make a poor criminal
My heart just isn't in it
But a thief of love I try
To keep my columns Doric
And my ashes dry
Until they come again
The chorus in my head
Isn't the 'ic' the 'Ich' the 'I'
In the circle of the dead
Who compose and decompose
What I write down instead

Feast's Valentine

Ours is not a mystical age
Having eaten all our judgements
We've run out of guilt and shame
We keep wanting to turn the page
And put an end to suffering
But on the feast of St. John of the Cross
We're reminded of its purpose
To see visions and to hear voices
Don't be afraid it's me
But who today wants to see
What John and Teresa saw
When they sat in the fire's light
And shared their stories
Of the soul's dark night

Answered Valentine

What lives in the spinning middle
Between dawn and total darkness
What stands out there between
Life and death vacillating
Between heat and cold
Is it not you my soul
A small hut we build
Using the wings of great beings
Hungry for the food that heals
We know is coming to us
Say only the word
In every moment you
Creating us and we
Creating you

Winter Garden Valentine

The plant's life and the plant's body
Are not the same thing
Its body comes and goes
But its life is in the planets
And the sun's rhythmic rays
That stir the roots
Life is slow and then it quickens
When the leaves start to breath
In and out the air we live on
I can still remember where I was
When I first felt this
God breathing in the garden
His body so distant
But his love so near

Struck Valentine

My brain is a piñata
You keep hitting and missing
What are we celebrating today
They've put a hood on me
And I am blindly swinging
Which makes me happy
To hear them laughing
And finally a strike
My life pours out
In souvenirs and candy
I rush to retrieve
I'm only five or six
And fixed in a childhood
I will never leave

Advent Valentine

A few weeks before you were born 
When you were just entering the earth's
Torn atmosphere with the smell of snow
In the air and fires on the hillsides
Your voice whispered to me
From the depths of the womb
I am coming to take you home
In my hands I carry
The purpose of your life
Such a small thing
I almost dropped it
On the way down
But then why come at all
And then you landed in my arms

Gemstone Valentine

The more we lose the spirit
In things to prove we're free
The more the obvious lie
Of the world is believed
What is freedom for if one
Is only free when loving
But we insist on finding out
We want to explore every dark cave
And the sinews of every bird
We push on to ever grander theories
Of the case carefully stepping around
The little gem of spirit at the center
As if it wasn't there
In our refusal to receive it

Possible Valentine

Is it possible I just saw
Sitting here outside
A butterfly in December
Which had been a blizzard once
Up there in the north what's left
Of some great disaster
If you believe love is
In everything we see
Don't you go a little crazy
I mean it's so transparent
It looks like nothing's there
Air and light we see through
But the butterfly comes home to roost
And the disaster cries and cries for you

Held Valentine

Slowly the sun grew in her belly
I could not love you more except
For the force of your love for me
It was like a little flame at first
She feared would die in the dark
I hold you close she thought
But it's only you holding me
When her nephew was born
She saw how it would tear her apart
The unrelenting light in her heart
But slowly she built the body of the sun
Out of her blood and bones
Some days she climbed the hills
And slept among the stones

Half a Valentine

One half of the world
Is everyone talking at once
And the other half
Barely listening
Every winter there are bodies
Buried under the snow
Every summer there are bodies
Stumbled on in the desert
Those greater beings who keep us
Always under construction
Keep extending the day of completion
They're always whispering to us
To come out into the snow
To wander out into the desert

Strict Valentine

Was I absent the only day
The gift of love was given out
Did I come late and sick as usual
And hear only the last instructions
About the homework I missed
And would never catch up on
Enough to pass the tests
I would have to make up
And had I considered a tutor
Or stepping back another year
Or maybe another school
Here the rules are strict
And you look like love's
Or some lover's fool

Awaiting My Signature Valentine

When I sat down with my life planners
So many centuries ago of course
They had it all written out
Even an appended glossary of terms
Which I never did get to
Hundred of pages of fine print
Detailing exceptions and exemptions
With supporting documents
Guaranteeing the unexpected
Would accrue on a daily basis
They were sure my stock would go up
Explained with charts and graphs
The whole element of chance
As almost completely eliminated
When I would reap my vast return

If Valentine

If you're conceived on March 25th
Your might be born on Christmas
Nine months to the day exactly
And if you're lucky it's in a manger
Because no one wants you
Except your teenage mother
And an old man with a mule
Who keep you warm with their staring
And have never looked happier
To have you with them finally
Though they know they're being hunted
And must cross the desert alone
Confident and trembling as they are
To have you in their care
And you to go on sleeping there

Carried Valentine

Young in the old sense of time
The middle-aged priestess was marked
With red tattoos proving her efficacy
A wandering healer to the many
Small villages along the river
And to the distant mountain places
One time she brought back snow
And held it melting in her hand
Dripping into our dead sand
In the children she awakened
A strong desire to run away
And in the old she inspired
A stubbornness to stay
In my study of mummies
She's the one carrying the god
Her hair lofting in the breeze

At Least Valentine

The ingrown nails of history
Lanced over and over by the sun
When it walks in at the side window
With its healing rays asking
Who is not alien in this world
Who does not wander
From thing to thing
Grasping it or throwing it away
But what among the vast array
Appeals to you as ripe
And solemn for the picking
Now that you are conscious
At least of the garden
The trees willed into place

Practical Valentine

Longer hours at the P.O.
And the cat is wheezing with a cold
And the Guatemalan family
Across the street explodes
With twinkling lights
And a huge Advent Calendar
That dispenses sweets
From different countries
Or did I just dream that
Jesus was coming to town
Did I just hope this time
He'd bring his brothers and sisters
A gang of real angels
And no more mangers

Conjunct Valentine

Of course we all believe in astrology
Even if only in our bones
We all recognize the signs
Later that evening we sense
Being touched by the inevitable
In retrospect as clearly nimble
As the stars and raving planets
Charting out the mission of our lives
To regard everything here on earth
As a premonition and a proof
Of a ruling wisdom holding itself
Aloof and yet intimately involved
Slowly untying the tangles
And tough knots of time

Rosy Valentine

Has he not taken on
The waste of the world
So not even the waste is wasted
Has he not gone down
To the stupid and the awful
Things I've said and done
And still I'm clothed and fed
Has he not told me
Time and again when
I'm disgusted with myself
To get a grip on him
And hold on tightly
The way he clings
To the cross I am

Earth's Birthday Valentine

The evanescence of eternity
Consumes me every morning
I listen and the world
Goes to work I look
And it tramps home
What you took to the grave
Keeps wanting to return
And bloom out there
The last blue flower
Whose name I don't remember
How it wants to get back
To the essential chaos
And begin again
To pick up the pieces

Red Tailed Valentine

New breezes squeaking in the trees
But only a chosen few observe
That hawk circling high above us
Three times it hung in place
Fluttering for a moment still
Then fell in slow perfect curves
Spelling out some code or name
Did it signify our dead friend's
Embodiment in its wings
Just for a few bends and turns
Showing off for us
Her new freedom from the earth
Her grace and balance compared
To our bent necks and straining eyes