Incarnating Valentine

If you've never been deeply amused

You'll never be deeply frightened

If you've never been deeply confused

You'll never be deeply enlightened

Nothing is colder than the desert at night

Nothing hotter during the day

One drives me deeper into the ground

While the other wafts me away

I planted a tree on your birthday

And shook your ashes into the earth

Around it and sprinkled it

With water from a holy spring

One day with juicy oranges

You'll fill my mouth again

Getting There

When you get there you forget

What you came for and must

Go back retracing your steps

And half-way there recalling

What it was and turning back

You were almost there the first time

All this only took seventy years

Until you noticed you'd been

Doing this your whole life

Either retrograde or direct

Long since you became a star

Harnessed to your orbit

Shepherding the space around you

The light you went back to seek

What I Know Valentine

I know you smile and refuse

My relentless optimism you my joy

In the face of so many disasters

Ours and the world's incompetence

Whether the history of sin will win

Over the brief stories of love

When it comes to David and Goliath

The giant afraid of his shadow

And the boy who becomes a king

The true history is written

By deeds of service rendered

By kings and queens

Who know they are

Kings and queens

Verdin's Valentine

Two Verdins come to harvest

The dandelion seeds

Light enough to land

On the tall stems

Heavy enough to tip

Them over spilling

Them on the grass

Where they are easier

To reach is that

Where they get their color

Pale greenish-yellow breasts

From the dandelion flower

Barely an hour my wonder

A thread of the world unwove

 

Its Valentine

One wants it

To stabilize

At perfect

Even as it

Never is

But almost

Borrowing perfection

If it has 

A source

You reach it

And it touches

You back

You're it

A Long Sentence Valentine

When the sun at last arrested me

And took me into custody

I knew I would have to confess

I was that child who did

Those things I shot the tree

But not the bird I swear

How I ravished your world

Over and over I was taken down

Strangely always protected

By friends I didn't trust

Was it wrong to have always

Counted on you to have known

From the beginning you

Would be there at at the end

Elemental Valentine

We sleep through the summers

So we can be awake in the winters

Our dreams are like springs and falls

Wind and rain remembered visitors

When the snow covers us all

And we wake up in the middle of the earth

In the mineral light of our souls

Where the seeds are stirring

Having buried the sun

We want to be there

At the very beginning

Where life enters matter

And matter gives up its life

We long to lend a hand

Dante's Valentine

The universe escapes me

I escape into the universe

It's such a beautiful day

And I am taking you with me

Do we have something better to do

Than feel how the darkness

Obliterates us how the stars

Call out to us clearly

Preparing us for something

Returning us to the earth

Each morning safely

Now we know we are immortal

And have only to work out

The mortal part

There Valentine

Tips of icebergs

Tips of mountain tops

Tips of your fingers

The reaching never stops

Eyes touch eyes

There on the tip of your eye

You have something hold still

That cannot see itself

Unless in the mirror of you

An image appears

As I might have been

Or soon would be

If love would save me

Or I save you

Love Despite Love Valentine

Two eyes on the outer world

And one eye on the inner

I go back and forth

Trying to bring them together

But often they just collide

And I go careening about

Both worlds like snow does

Bursting from a tree in the sun

Cascades sifting down

In a soft wind

Glittering like grace

And suddenly the veil

Of the veil is lifted

And I can see your face

Warm Ashes Valentine

I feast before I fast

I know the flesh won't last

But first the flame and then

The ash a bird's wings stirring

A table a clock a skull

I have placed myself upon

The altar of my sins

Drunk the wine and bread

And confessed your glory

As unworthy as I'm sorry

While you were always 

Just waiting here inside

Warmly to receive me

Only Those Who Love Are Free Valentine (for Mary)

On the occasion of my graduation

From serf to slave

I felt ashamed of my freedom

Perceiving how only those who love

Are free and this sat me down

It was a cumulative apprehension

Of revolutionary dimensions

And being toward dawn already leaning

I woke up in the dream of the world

In the dream of myself

And you were there mingling

Some party in a basement

Both keeping our distance

Or over coffee fast and furious

The one who knew this too

What Is Good Valentine

It's good that when I was young

I fed myself on books and lakes

So I'd have them to come back to

The ending of the mind

Only the beginning can tell

The first half of my life

Finishing my former life

Before I could begin this one

Trying to be good at something

Which is both a science

And an art waiting

For beauty to call

And hear you say

This is good this is good

Valentine's Valentine

Even love has a birthday

Is memorialized with flowers

And a secret wish

Refusing to tell its age

Hurrying to blow out the candles

And open its gifts

Away or toward us

Love seems always moving

In any event adrift afraid

Until it reminds us

Just when we'd forgotten it

Today's my birthday

Do you even remember my name

Human Valentine

I love how some words widen out

To include even their opposite meaning

There's something generous in that

Or to become a word of one

Repeated letter w-w-w-w

Or l-l-l the names of the upper gods

That heal the lips that speak them

What word would you use

To describe a word

That doesn't want to be a word

That refuses pronunciation 

The self-contradictory word

Unspeakable doesn't quite say it

Caller ID Valentine

When I hear the phone's trill

I always hope it's Jess or Joan

Not 'Name Unavailable'

And never the blank 'Unknown'

Or someone who politely

Just wants to leave a message

About something I don't really

Need to know right now

A death announcement

Or a dental appointment

I need to re-schedule

I only pick up for the names

I love and know

Betweren Valentine

I'll have to clean the birdbath

If I expect that flicker to return

Or these sparrows to be grateful

As I want them to feel

I try to be to them

And the plants in whose presence

I take my short walks

Who try to soothe me

With their long vowels 

Inventing new languages every day

I'll have to learn to speak

If I expect them to be heard

Something passes between us

A sigh and a living word

All the Means Valentine

What if you had all

The means of rejoicing

But you did not rejoice

Why would you refuse

The choice of bliss

Would you not rejoice

Would you find some excuse

Make up some story

You had to get back to work

Something just came up

Some sadness that demands

Your immediate attention

And you'll call me later

Next Valentine

Biography is brief

But long is life

To be continued always

Never the end though some

Last longer than others

Where does their unused portion go

Their unlived life

I'd like to know

Like something being given up

So someone else

Could have it

And carry it further

To the next and the next

Called Back Valentine

I confused a calling

With a means of escape

Opportunities don't only

Attract they compel 

So I ran all the way back

To the 12th century 

Just to catch up a little

Only to read in the stars

I had to keep going back

To the 9th and the 3rd

Until I'd come upon

A resurrection

Where I could stop

And heal

Sophie's Valentine

She sits a shadow in the darkness

With light around her like a halo

So we can just see the outline

Of her head bent to the pictures

She's drawing lonely as a scribe

Writing down the words of the gods

Reflecting them back to us

Until knowing becomes doing

She has the courage to be humble

Taking dictation as if she

Weren't the source of all wisdom

The dark one in the mirror

Who is drawing us all

Ready Valentine

A poem should convince you

Of its need to be a poem

And make you believe

In poetry even if only for

The few seconds it lasts

You are stung by something

Exotic like what does language want

So much preparation has gone

Into creating it and speaking it

You have to be ready

At a moment's notice

To leave it all behind

Everything ends in a poem

Dove's Valentine

The dove is the harshest bird

Its sqwacks and its coos

One scolds me one soothes

I haven't a clue

Which can be counted on

Alarm or calm

When it sweeps through my yard

Peace coming and going

I try to focus on the rhythm

Over longer and longer

Periods of time

Until there could only be

This one dove coming

And going for now

Just Because Valentine

Just because god is dead

Doesn't mean he's gone away

Your hate and love are fastened to him

Whatever you call father

Even if you never knew him

God is the absent umbrella father

Of whom you are ashamed

A child you wind up rejecting

Never knowing when he'll show up

Wanting money or just to hold you

Where did you come from father

We would not have been friends as kids

You with your stories and me with my sins

Taking the Air Valentine

The pond is so silky in the sun

I can feel the fish and the feet

Of the ducks over there bobbing

Up and down cruising around

The baby carriages and the joggers

Heavy and slim trundling past

How everything is fastened safely

To the earth except the trees

Who keep reaching for the sky

As if under arrest by the clouds

Chased in and out of the sun

So much mayhem and magic up there

Until I see it's all just pictures

Passing through my mind of air

Fuller Valentine

I was marveling how the dead go on

Living in us a kind of further life

We feel diminished by the loss

Of something somehow more

A part of us we must imagine now

And grasp at them with our grief

Surprised how easily they could slip

Into the invisible world around

When there was so much love to live

What could be so urgent

They must leave us so bereft

Unless they wanted us to know

Our lives together are even fuller

Than any body could enclose

Asked Valentine

Can I ask you a favor

Even after how many years

As if you didn't know my answer

Just your way of changing the subject

So I would pause and wonder

If there was still something unknown

Between us like the exact

Date of our parting or

Could you do dinner tonight

The trivial and the solemn

Requests love makes

Of no one else but you

So go ahead and ask me

As if I could be true

Another Hovering Valentine

The bees are systematic

Mindful among the dandelions

A whole swathe of them

Sprung up after the rain

Which must look like

A field of sunflowers

To the ants passing below

Swaying in the breeze

But tallness is all relative

To your size and the bees

Can lift their weight in gold

While the dandelions plead

Take all of me if you please

Hovering Valentine

How can we come to a true conception

Until we allow for a pure perception

Just seeing what's there

In its perfecting standing still

And beholding it

Without judgment or fear

But how far back in time

Do you have to get

To sense it's all pictures

Both themselves and something else

Like a hovering cloud

Working through them

Through the small space of the present

Another pyramid of sand is falling

But if you look away a moment

You can almost hear it singing

Something to us

Sky Valentine

Could you say the birds

Condescend to the trees

Does that imply too much

Order to the sky too much clinging

The way it feels its way along

Part planned part searching

Part sealed part open

Don't you think the sky 

Is free to choose its own 

Armor and vestments

Or run naked into the ocean

The freedom that comes

From knowing how to travel

From life to life