Pentecost Valentine

Sooner or later
Climbing the ladder
Of time we bump
Our heads on heaven
And are thrown
Back down until
A rope is lowered
Or a pair of wings
Is carefully constructed
From threads and shards
Of past mistakes
To lift through time
And space bright
Sparks of flame

Li-Poo to Hang-Du Valentine

Baby the weeks speed ahead
While the days creep behind
They will never catch up
I would have compared
A puma to a hare
Or a snail to these turtle nights
What kind of friend
Can a month be or a year
That every day ends
And you are still not here
Perhaps I sent too brief
Directions or you've taken
The wrong train how long can I
Exist on just the speaking your name

Arjuna's Valentine

Into my empty cluttered brain
Each dawn a revelation came
A feeling I cannot explain
A sense of the deepest calm
Stirring my storm of thoughts
As I watched them come and go
And for a moment it seemed as though
I could finally know nothing
But the deepest uncertainty
And not blink an eye
I could feel the armies
Of the light behind me
I could face the loss of all
With an implacable serenity
Knowing with you I fight

Rushing Weeks of Plodding Days Valentine

I stay up late
And wake up early
At night I walk
Across the lake
Come light I hide
In the woods unworried
I wait for little
Things to accumulate
The thud of an emaciated
Flower a dripping
From the leaves
Always he feels
Just around the corner

At the Last Grave Valentine

After long fluttering in the light
And laying down of eggs such a life
Its wings battered with exhilaration
It lays down on the wet grass
Awaiting dreamfully
The undertaker ants
So all my favorite childhood
Stories are of funerals and this
Is just a prime example
Of when the dead one
Sits up in his casket
And looks around at us
As if death was done

Nothing Valentine

During the long ceremony of waves
You sat there staring at the dark
Invisible lake and then
The daily monstrance rose
With gulps of darkness
Exposing you on the beach
A creature of the light
A stone or shell from where
You are now you can turn
And look back at yourself
From the other side of the world
And still you are ground down
Even if the grinding takes
Eternity you sit and wait

Ahead Valentine

We bring flowers to our sweethearts
And our dead we plant them
Around us in pots and drifts
As if they might convince us
But we plant tomatoes in the front yard
Where the sun is best and keep
The backyard for its beautiful
Stretch of grass and one Chaste tree
Which happens to be blooming blue-
Pale-purple panicles repeat that quickly
And you've captured my mood
Thinking of all the flowers that lie ahead
Of us and all the red tomatoes torn
And eaten from the vine

Ascension Valentine

That some would like to make it so
And push us down to competing animals
Into a war of all against all
That some would like to turn it all
Into a moving drama of facts
Designed to avoid the central act
That some would like to choke off
The spring just as it begins to bubble up
Into a searching stream
That some would like to be cruel and mindless
While the rest are carried along
Yet I still have hope for mercy
That it must be boundless when it comes
If it would keep us strong

Late Arrival Valentine

Isn't the truth always a surprise
You keep looking around to find
A face hidden in a crowd of lies
Until it leaps out at you
There all along but somehow
Just arriving an unknown face
Searching for your own
Stranger's countenance
Until our eyes lock
And we smile in recognition
You made it I didn't
Think you'd come
I'm exhausted my love
Please take me home

The Judas Question Valentine

Why not just give us heaven
If you have it in your keeping
The easiest thing to do
Just heal us all at once
And we can live together again
As in the first days Father
When we played in the woods
And went fishing on your rivers
We love those who are good to us
Who never abandon us
Despite our treachery
And you are the only one left
Who could possibly tell us
Why must the good be so hard

Left Valentine

These leftover days
I never finish
Anything but prayers
Three half written
Letters and ten
Left open books
My thoughts pile
Up Like dirty
Dishes I will
Get to later
I sit outside
Afraid I'll miss
A moment of magic
These butterflies accomplish

Secret Valentine

Wisdom exalts
What love preserves
What we forgot
Keeping it a secret
From ourselves returns
The effect creeps up
On the consequence of the cause
Shocking us into remembering
That of course these words
Are just similes
For you and me
You who are so wise
And I who love you
So much

Common Valentine

Now nothing can be understood
Except in the light of you
One by one we come to the grave
And stare at the abyss
Wondering how to get across
Where some see only emptiness
And turn and walk away
Others head out for the lake
Or the mountains searching the roads
For anyone who's seen you
But now who will know you
When they see you who will
Have enough common sense

Running Valentine

I hear you so it’s good you run

I run around the house avoiding

Housework it keeps me moving

The weeks are like freight

Cars banging into one another

As the brakes are applied the

Dropped bomb is still detonating

The world is at war with itself

But who is holding a gun to our heads

If we weren’t too frightened

we could turn around and look

I am hiding and being hunted

You are running and being chased

The difference between us is miniscule

A smile is the last free act

You make me smile

Heavenly Valentine

We think of heaven as the end of pain
But if heaven's already happened
Maybe we have it turned around
And heaven merely exposes
A deeper hurt in need
Of healing the weeping god
And the laughing god
Paraded through the streets
Here in heaven the Father God
Takes up all the room
With his farms of stars
And the Son is left
To suffer on earth
Of his own free will
 

Javelina's Valentine

Plants preserve the time before desire
And prefigure the nights after it's gone
But a javelina dug and ate
All the bulbs I planted yesterday
Desire is so delicious
I suppose she could smell them
From a mile away
But if she'd only waited
A few weeks she could
Have devoured all the flowers
Aphrodisiac on the tongue
And stumbled through the woods
Like any world-drunk man
And fallen asleep in the sun
Dreaming of the purity to come

Betwixt Valentine

Somewhere between cruelty and tenderness
There is a whole world of effort
As if held in parenthesis
On a stretch of beach
Between the ocean and the forest
A passageway between
Two worlds where we are walking
Or laying in the sun reading
Our histories or playing catch
Where the great decisions
Wait on either side of us
Between drowning and burning
Between sinking and swimming
Between love and misery

In A Conflagration of Fritillaries Valentine

I need to dig a hole
To plant my desert rose
For years it's lived in a pot
Until it's eaten all the dirt
Just a ball of roots left
And yet it still flowers
Its sister the red one
Died in the cold one night
When I wasn't watching
Like the woman I walked out on
Trying to leave the past behind
Too far gone to return
I need to dig a hole
To plant my sorry mind
And yet it's blooming still

Joan's Valentine

My cat realizes a relationship
With a human cannot be
An entirely healthy thing
I know she sees in me
So much dependency and keeps
A certain emotional distance
My aura crowded with
so many complicated lives
She struggles to unravel
But not too proud to lick my toes
She knows what flesh is for
What must be loved and eaten
She has her tender side
And sleeps like angels nesting

No Man's Valentine

No problem-o no pressure we say
But something is always
Pressing on us wanting out
A memory knotted-up
A hair-ball spit on the floor
Our feeble hopes like feeble waves
As you stand shouting on the shore
Surely someone is coming
To rescue you from this island
You always wanted an island of your own
The waterfall in the forest
The long rainy season you love
How will you ever leave it
Even when they come

David's Valentine

Didn't Lazarus go through the last
Mystery of Eleusis too young
To die but he crossed over
Long enough to experience
A conscious continuity
And then came back
To tell us not to be afraid
Of something we've been doing all along
But it's one thing to raise someone
Else from the dead and another
To raise oneself from life to life
To become ash in the earth
And take on its whole glory
In a pool of light in the yard

Still Here After a Year Valentine

I was sleeping when you died downstairs
Jess said you birthed a little smile
With your last soundless breath
But she woke me right away
And I could still feel you in the room
Looking around a little dazed as we were
Seeing everything had changed
What could possibly be next
Without your necessary presence
In a body we could touch
But you were bathed and kissed
And dressed in your favorite clothes
While you watched and waited smiling
As we wept you on your way

Wesak Valentine

Particles of Buddha's self-esteem
Smashed into a trillion pieces
Are eternally drifting down
Gradually the true owner
Of the world comes back
To claim it and collect the rent
Way overdue and unrepayable
I hide in my little house
Hoping you forget where I live
And praying you remember
My whole life is a waiting
For you to return
Then I wake to find
We're already together

Beautiful Valentine

Can you love someone
If you don't really know them
Or if you know too much
Or is love a higher knowing
Tolerant of its own ignorance
And impervious to scorn
Or faithlessness when beauty
Arouses it its only source
And proof if you love it
It must be beautiful
And if it's beautiful
Naturally you love it
And the most beautiful
Is to know nothing at all

Schooled Valentine

Maybe our teacher chooses
Only the most difficult students
Why wouldn't he be drawn to those
Who only want to be themselves
Which is his secret plan
Every day he brings yet
Another incomprehensible lesson
And tells us take out our crayons
And draw a picture of what
He just said make up a story
Of the rest of our lives
And every one of our efforts
Is hung up on the wall
And we sit dumbly
As he praises them all

Bread of Life Valentine

Aren't we always finding new elements
To add to the recipe of the earth
The countless ingredients that must be there
If we want it to turn out right
After all that mixing and stirring
Kneading and freezing and testing
Until each ion finds its place
And settles in for the duration
Into a sumptuous being
Aware of its limitations
Yet driven to be worthy
Enough of what it wants
To taste good and be
Good for you and me

Longing Valentine

How come on the way to something else
I stumbled on you and started
Thinking of nothing more
Than how I could impress you
How can it be the most decisive things
Are made to seem accidental
Like a dropped object I could
Barely pick myself up and go on
Hardly noticing I had collapsed
Inside while staying outwardly
Calm and civilized and strong
How could the monumental
Be made to pass so small
How could we wait so long

Undigested Valentine

Sometimes I feel we are all in the process
Of absorbing one another somehow
Through touch and glance and words
Trying to metabolize one another's souls
As at a great banquet or meager table
We keep turning things into nothing
Raging between joy and despair
Forgetting the stranger who sits
Between us we met on the way
But why does he keep ordering another loaf
And another bottle of wine
How can he just sit there
Glowing with peace and contentment
Acting as if everything was fine

In Beauty's Way Valentine

The ruby sleeps into a rose
The rose wakes up in a robin
Blood drying on its breast
Another morning in heaven
But what am I doing here
Letting it all fly through me
The remorselessness of beauty
That never comes to rest
But presses on beyond me
Doesn't it call for me to follow
To foresee where it leads
How hard my heart must be
Not to take its hand
And let it culminate in me