Whoever Valentine

In Burgos once the young Cistercian nuns

Sang down the stones to ruins we visit now

Their imagined lives still under construction

 

And the hills around Burgos

They grow sturdier the more

You look back over their shoulders

 

While the fields once around Burgos

Where I have never been

Still hold our footprints

 

How is this Burgos even possible

Unless we spend the past

Going back over the future

 

If memory serves in Burgos once

We had our first rendezvous

Whoever you are dear reader

A Bust Called 'Idea' Valentine

I parked my pedestal in the garage

And placed my head outside on a table

The one called 'Idea' ready to live

With the face of an angel

 

So this is what it feels like to have wings

Coming out of the sides of your head

And to be innocent of all self-interest

A messenger of the wind and the dead

 

To have a tongue of stone

At one with the great 'Idea'

Of a heart in its early stages

Before the blood arrives

 

But someone had to be there

It was you wasn't it waiting

Alone and eager to fly

Watching your life pass by

 

 

 

Could You Valentine

Into this narrow strip of time

Where the light pours calmly down

Between the highest mountains

And the bottom of the seas

Eight miles up and eight miles down

The distance it takes to get to town

And return with some living done

Something for supper and eager sleep

But could you run that far for love

Sixteen miles from the roof to the floor

If your life depended on it

And launch out higher deeper

Past the boundary of the stars

And moon-like sink the seas

Just A Question Valentine

Do you think Lord

If I run a straight line

From the sun to Saturn

From your heart to mine

And then up to Venus

From my lips to yours

Like the slash of a sword

Or the lift of a bird

Over to Jupiter it would climb

Beyond the hazy reach of time

Would our bodies intertwine

Would I taste the bread and wine

And reach the shores of Mercury

To find you waiting impatiently

Dispassionate Valentine

When I dismantled your tortured body

Starting with the veins of contradiction

That tangled through your brain

I came upon a nest empty as a heart

So finely made it crumpled in my hand

When I tried to pull it out

A desiccated mess I made of you

But kept on cutting off your arms 

Avoiding the blind eyes of buds

To get to where your life had stopped

And might yet come again

What was your intention

But to get to some intent

To suffer through to flowering

And dying rest content

Sent Valentine

One of those folding doors of time

That comes down with a cosmic crash

Scaring the cats and the doves fly off

Sealing all of death's possessions inside

All it could never live without

 

One of those great black clouds

Hovering above the sunset lake

Which suddenly rushes toward

And completely devours your heart

In a single spine-tingling gulp

 

One of those huge asylums of love

To which you've been sent to scrub

Your tears from the worn-out floors

And walk with the sleepless moon

The empty halls of the stars

Grander Valentine

This must be the 299th death and life

I'm facing slowly aren't we all

We old souls we've learned to smile

When we hear the sleigh bells toll

We've seen life is final more

Infinite and grander than nature

Which is a sluggish imitation

And the highest form of honor

And recognize the family resemblance

In the stupid arguments we have

If not quarrelsome then how contrite

We've seen love is temporary

Delicate and full of light

And we have learned to love to fight

God's Play Valentine

If you jumble all the myths together

And Lear appears at Parsifal's table

And the Queen of Sheba flounces in

With St. Francis on her arm

 

And Achilles and Nietzsche

Get lost in a game of chess

And Dante starts to get preachy

And Mary straightens her dress

 

You'll know the carnival of heaven

Has come to your town again

To dissolve the world in chaos

And absolve it of its sins

 

And once again you face

The beasts who bar your way

Take off the masks of gods

And learn again to play

Windy Valentine

My Tibetan prayer flags

Look like sad burnt rags

After this summer's heat

Not an Amen left to repeat

 

We laugh together at them

Until we turn and see

The distant hills still blazing

With a holocaust of trees

 

A mourning dove lands on the roof

And then immediately flies off

Will she be back when the flood returns

And we have not eaten for days

 

Is the wind itself the only prayer left

For us to say who drives the fire

And the flood to bless

Or curse us as it may

Lizard's Valentine

But what possesses

The shady cat

To hide out under

The drowsy bush

 

When we both know perfectly well

She's hunting for lizards

Where she caught one

There last night

 

Her weapons are stealth

And an infinite patience

In that she's like a god

 

And god-like in her claw

And she could maul you easily

And then forget about it all

Lie Down With Me Valentine

The spirit must precede the body

Not just accompany it out

The long years of preparation

Building those paper ships

And then pushing them out

Into the cosmic current

To become somebody else

How many times discovering

The same continent over again

But the spirit must build its tent

Camp after so many perilous hikes

It must build a little fire from inside itself

If it would warm the infinite cold

 

Father's Valentine

The father thought

It was his son

Who woke his heart

Who broke his heart

By leaving him

 

The father thought

His son too friendly

With the wrong sort

Who would only drag him down

To the world that drug

 

But he was still completely

Willing to lose him

And to be lost to him completely

 

He always trusted him implicitly

And believed he would return

Prodigal Valentine

I lean too much on you my father

But is it as much as you on me

It's just you're always there

Sometimes I need some space alone

Which of course you always provide

And which I spend missing you

My time wastes by eternally

What for you is merely a few seconds

You said you'd wait for me at the corner

While I exorcized my demons

You promised I could have

As many lifetimes as I needed

Finally you abandoned me altogether

Made me my own father and mother

Was it so I could feel like

What it feels like being you

When Life Valentine

When life slips out of the body

And it can't get back in

But is pushed out into the general

Background life of things

Then life being life

Can't not but go on

In search of yet another form

Better than the last one

Death's heavy curtain

Opens on a further scene

A bustling city square

Or a forest in Arden

Where life is love must be

The body's only a summary

A blueprint for new stars

The Three Loves Valentine

There is thought-out love first

And then the love that is nothing but feelings

And then there are all the things

Love actually gets done in a day

 

Even when the thought of love

Whatever you make of it

Is all you think about each night

 

The thought toward which all

The others inevitably fall

 

And even if what you feel

Is the tenderest joy

It's possible to feel

 

Still only the third one matters

Which is the love of the other two

 

The quarrelsome and lonely loves

Who don't know what to do

If For You Valentine

I think there is nothing

In the world more beautiful

Than the faces of children

 

All children all their faces

Before it dawns on them

The world's darker parts

 

Even when shattered

They are more beautiful

Than all the world's pictures

 

If for you beauty is still holy

And alive and you are old enough

To have lived to see it

Unnatural Valentine

Did you just see that yellow leaf

Hop down to the ground while

All the others fell or are falling

But that one clearly leapt

Upward at first casting itself

Out as if to catch the wind

Not merely succumbing to it

But working it to its purpose

To land at a greater distance

From the branch that had

Already lifted it as far as it

Could go its direction was the sun

But the ground still wanted it to fall

New Moon in My Sign Valentine

I've visited heaven many times

The Lord has often been my guest

Such as I on earth can know him

But he keeps his visits brief

And often we sit in awkward silence

Listening to the movements

The bird voices of the world

Me trying to think of a question

Him shining his Buddhist grin

Always arriving at leaving

I can't take too much of heaven

And he can't not take the whole earth

He says one day

He'll come to stay

 

You Know Valentine

You know how memory works

In family groups and curious

Hard-won associative patterns

 

The truth is we have to run the world

And throw it away at the same time

Sensing the onward flow the moon

Behind its iron scrim

 

But there are those who want

To stay behind and the question is

Who will go back to fetch them

 

The dead are our children

We suddenly realize

One day walking along

 

We find a further life in them

If we take them seriously

If we trust them as friends

Passion Vine Valentine

Will you dear angel

Remind me of the name

Of that vine over there

 

I forget what year

I stood it in its hole

And pruned and watered it

 

And waited for it to cling

Like a body to its bones

To make the trellis ring

 

And now you're dying

And I've forgotten your name

Numberless leaves I have known

 

But now I take from memory

Whatever it provides

Vast in its elisions

Balanced Valentine

The plants are surely breathing us

As we are steadily breathing them

You'd think we'd get better and better

 

But the carbon keeps building up

And we struggle to hold the balance

Between in-breath and out

 

It takes a whole year

For a tree's single breath

So secure is its faith in life

 

Its dying is almost more beautiful

Than its being born

And there are those among them

 

Who never lose their leaves

But go on breathing the light

As death whispers past

 

Mixed Valentine

I don't want tacos

I don't know what I want

So we end up with tacos

 

And because fall here

Is like spring there

After a blistering summer

We can't wait to turn

 

The garden and start it up again

But it's a strange fall here

A mixture of dying and sprouting

 

So even when you find out

What you want it's only

The wanting that survives

 

And a settling for winter roses

 

Right Valentine

Sometimes to do the right thing

To get up and walk away

Has nothing to do with love

 

Even if it turns out badly

It's like the thousand tiny seeds

Of a particular orchid

Drifting on the wind

 

In hopes a tiny few

Will happen on the right

Subject and you'll know

When it's selected you

 

For a trial run to see

How far you can take it

And to find out for sure

 

It's the only mistake

You didn't make

Argument with My Angel Valentine

Yes holding on to the devil's hand

I am often for the ride

Of my life but I hate

The Ferris wheel and

He always wants to scream

Over and over again

In the haunted house

Of my heart until

I slouch him home

We avoid the parade of fools

Already spoken for he has

His teeth in me a man alone

And argues back the more

I tell him to be calm

Don't Worry Valentine

I will not forget you angel

Together we will still go

For walks and I will rub

Your feet and you will scratch

My back and we will sleep

Torn together by each other's

Dreams and snores and caresses

And we will finally get married

Me for the third you for the first time

Me to my first true mind

Though you loved me first

Even before I was born

You recognized my face

Third times a charm

Sometimes Valentine

Sometimes at night my angel

Comes from behind and faces me

Refusing to be ignored anymore

I ask her how she's doing

As she gives me an icy stare

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry

It's just I say the light gets so bright

And sometimes the darkness so deep

I totally forget you're there

I reach out to touch her hair

She has such lovely hair

I want to comfort her and tell her

Not to worry I won't forget her

As long as she is there

Half a Valentine

Half of the world is hidden from us

Half of life goes on without us

But who knew about the other half of seeing

Buried alive in us long ago

In my mind its hand reaches up

Out of the grave of my heart

And slowly its body rises

Into a sapling or a flower

That only lives for a day

Turns out the eternal is evanescent

Grasped it escapes into the night

Where dreaming pursues it

But I am left with only broken pieces

Of the other half of sight

 

God's Glory Valentine

In the unredacted version of my life

I start at the end of the last page

Proofing it backwards taking out

Or putting in the commas

Stretching out the personal pictures

With the objective unseen half

Of what was really going on

But often I stop at a particular page

Breaking down and can't continue

That quiet day you were born

Isn't God's greatest glory

That he had a child to love

Who could give birth to him

Who could bring his heart to life

The Better Part Vlanetine

The part of me

That gets things done

Isn't speaking to the part

That gets next to nothing done

What one calls indolent and lazy

The other calls contemplative and hazy

One prattles on about the dishes and the meals

While the other wonders what God feels

They both think they're both lost

Which is when they need you most

You silent one exhausted smiling

From talking and playing with the children

Come rest with us in the stillness

And give us our forgiveness

Up Valentine

Up all night

Partying on the roof

Now you sleep it off

Curled on the patio floor

Naked as the cat you are

Merely a visitor

From another world

You kept me waking

To the loud music

Of joy you called it

Too young for that word

Your body still sleek

And perfect as a bird

Your heart still strong and meek

 

Fake Valentine

Death seduces us with autumn's beauty

The mood of many loves ending

Mixed with so many just beginning

The way the fog lingers into afternoon

When we can't stop crying

Sitting among the quaking aspens

Until the sunlight rushes in

Searching as if it had forgotten something

A mother her own lost child

Or the will to live itself a body

Laying down covered with leaves

No leaf a breeze won't take

But death is such a fake

Plodding/Rushing Time Valentine

Such an accumulated debt

Of fear and greed and hate

Could only be repaid

When a new understanding prevails

When we forgive You Lord

As you have forgiven us

According to the old prayers

I still say from childhood

That childhood come again

This is simple mathematics

For which a new pair of ears

Has first to be carved out

To let the music enter us

Waking to Dream Valentine

Some high being hides in my hibiscus bush

I come to sit at her feet

Mornings after confusing dreams

To ask her what they meant

Her dreams are clear pointed leaves

Dead or green or yellow

She uses to enfold herself

In an unambiguous glow

Dying together with growing

Suffering into speechless bloom

Until she herself becomes a dream

Drawn up from the dark earth

We tremble when the sunlight

Fills her branches with birds