In the Season of Sorrow Valentine

It's unlikely they would build a nest

In so vulnerable a place but I watched

Them take a clump of cat's hair

Laying on the grass and tease it

Carefully between three twigs

On the lowest dead branch of a tree

Of heaven and weave a web from it

Discarding pieces that wouldn't fit

Coming and going with new supplies

I wanted to warn them not to stay

But I knew they wouldn't listen to me

What could I say about spring

They didn't already believe

Building its tender necessity

 

All Night Run Valentine

I've fallen behind

But I'm catching up

My feet hitting the ground

My heart picking up speed

But the end keeps shifting

And the hills keep drifting

And I'm a hundred miles from town

And now it's starting to snow

I'm burning and freezing

I'm crying and laughing

But the wind keeps pushing me on

And slowly I'm leaving my body behind

Outdistancing all I know

And crashing through the dawn

Cuneiform Valentine

You must think of it as a new encounter

Though you've done it many times before

You must hold it in your hands

Like an infant or a clay tablet

From five thousand years ago

When death comes to honor you

And shake your trembling hand

With a grip that won't let go

As when Gilgamesh met Enkidu

And they wrestled in the sand

You must live on with your lost friend death

Something that can only happen on earth

This holding on and letting go

This long labor of birth

Palm Valentine

It's always Palm Sunday

In the palms along the beach

It's always the arrival of the king

Where the waves crowd in and bow

Where angelic death passes over us

And the Buddha comes ashore

All the way from Mars or the Azores

Go get me a turtle he shouts

So I can ride in with him

This glorious wind

Sweeping in from the south

This light that glitters in the palms

These hosannas of the gulls

This sting of salt in my mouth

Daring Valentine

Every night while I'm asleep

My friend and I sit down to weep

And laugh and tell our stories

Of what almost happened and what did

He talks in pictures of the other life

We lived the day before and what

New nursery rhymes he's sketching

From the indications of the stars

For our next birth that's coming

Shortly in the morning

He writes down my instructions

And some things to take along

In a code we share in invisible ink

And then leaves me to it if I dare

Civilized Valentine

The smell of felled trees

Wafts on this morning's breeze

Two great pines that stood on our street

Crashing to the ground from sixty feet

Of dangerous dead wood

The last of a forest that stood

Outnumbered by civilized homes

And what took thirty years to crown

In thirty minutes was gone

Leaving us staring at the stumps

Inhaling the scent and the dust

And suddenly sensing around us

Quietly creeping toward their return

The rustling of needles and cones

Closer Valentine

The cat and I sit and watch

The brave red finch on the fresh-cut lawn

Feasting on the fallen dandelion seeds

Kitty can almost taste it and I

Who feel responsible for both

The animal who hungers for me

And the indifferent cautious bird 

One glaring at the other

One daring to stray near

Wonder how close we might get today

To some Franciscan kind of glory

Bird perched on my shoulder

Cat curled in my lap

Bird chirping some story

Cat taking a nap

At Sea Valentine

Fishing in the ocean of the sky

I cast the line of my eye

And watch the minnows passing by

And the great whales breach

Out there where the horizon creaks

Like the hull of an old ship

Or a sail in irons flapping about

It's a seafaring kind of sky

The sun like a dripping anchor

And the people waving on the shore

Slipping from sight on the open sea

The blue above and the blue below

And I don't know if I'm captive

Or captain or where we go

Brief History of Love Valentine

Do you remember from school

Fleur et Blancheflor and Mother Goose

How it started a whole new tapestry

For love in 11th century Europe just

Think of unicorns or Bernard's crusades

Or Percival in the forgotten forest

Until it all culminates in St. Hamlet

Where love drives love crazy

But who could follow such stories 

What I remember is walking eagerly

Five miles to school with the ass

Out of my pants as my father put it

You had me at five unending love

Freed me to be your slave

Matter Doesn't Matter Valentine

When the front door of death

Springs open or I fall

Under the axe of my time

Or when I'm shot in the woods

And tossed into the ocean

To go on drifting for days

Or when I'm carried out on a stretcher

And slipped into a plastic bag

Or when I slowly suffocate

Unable to remember our names

Or gratefully my heart just stops

And they find me slumped in my chair

However it happens it doesn't matter

I'll still be here waiting for you

Falls Valentine

I told my two friends

This couple I love

To go to Niagara Falls

They needed a break

From the world I said

They have barrels there

You can buy to sail

Over the falls or

You can ferry under

And into the thunder

And not hear a word you say

Holding on to your dear life

Which is why married people

Are drawn there to let it all go

Alone Valentine

In my 115th life I finally realized

This was at the change of moons

That the further into this world

I get the more difficult

It is to leave it

And the more contented I become

The more grateful I feel

Just trying to be as beautiful and sane

As any flower confronted

By my dreams which seem

The whole purpose of spring

Silly as tulips alive in late snow
For this alone I would return

To stand among them in the sun

Unnatural Valentine

The thing about nature

Which has always seemed

Otherworldly to me a dream

Is that it keeps repeating

Itself over and over again

Like a skipping heart-beat

Stuck in the middle of the song

So I guess hawks were born and the larks

Of reason the old logical crows

Who are still in charge of time

Who come to rule the eagles above the bay

Who give back to the sky a sense

Of some integrity at least

As it passes us by

No Use Valentine

If I were you

Hardly possible

As if that weren't

Already true

I'd say to me

Come closer let me

Breathe into you

Your other life

The one you gave me

It's no use

I knew it was you

Life with your way

Of knowing come closer

And pass through

I was always you

Qumran Valentine

Into the hidden jars of memory

I reach my cautious hand

And pull out shards and broken words

Lucky and unlucky numbers

Leftover pieces of unfinished puzzles

And there at the very bottom find

A small envelope of yellow seeds

Of some flower I've forgotten

The name of but the fragrance

Of that day remains plain

Spilling into my waiting palm

Carried carefully to some ground

I've saved some light I've made

Where the beginning is found

Available Valentine

What becomes available to us as humans

Bread and water light and air

What is given and taken away

Sight and hearing touch and taste

What waves back what flutters past

What sojourns on the moon

Playing in the traffic of the planets

And now this vacation in the sun

To relax in heaven for a while

Glancing at the ocean of the future

And maybe a morning swim with you

And then whatever becomes available

To us as tragic warriors of the earth

Bound by the gravity of love

March Valentine

I can only go around the yard

Picking up pieces of the world

It's so unfair of me

To compare one thing

To any other each stick

Is so unique soaked with rain

As if it would sprout again

If shoved into the ground

By the right hands

Isn't this all a tired gardener wants

The saucy poppies

Roaming the streets

The jonquils in drifts

For the deer to eat

Gleaming Valentine

Holding your photograph

I've used a device

To stop time to hold

You still painting you

Wasn't enough no

You really did look

Like that not someone's

Art work project

Though posed not smiling quite

The stillness before this stillness

The camera put you in

A firefly in a bottle

Proving you still gleam

And are mine

Even in Toronto Valentine

Apparently I had decided to arrive

Just at the high-point of the war

When they were burning the bodies

Of former generations overseas

Later from under my desk

I watched the bomb

Slowly enter my brain

What did it want

Seemed beyond my comprehension

We were just children craving

To get back to our games

But I had the sense

This had all happened before

And the clear apprehension

Something was terribly wrong

One Thing Left Valentine

Finally his melancholia dissolved

Into a deep reverence for all lost things

The phlegma of his younger days

Resolved his stubborn heart

Into a patient steady beating

So he could walk the world

With sanguine blood-shot eyes

Crying out in tender anger

You who would never

Abandon me come near

I have done what you have asked me

But there is one thing left to do

Which I alone invented

From all you taught me

About planting seeds 

And shearing sheep

Really Valentine

Little egocentric earth

You are alone

In the universe

You think

But you're the one

Who rises and sets

As the sun's first star

Yes you're the genius

Of the lot the gods'

Best hope into which

They've poured

Their last red drop

No really you yes

You're the one

They have selected

Temporary Valentine

Increasingly I'm able to imagine

A bright light at my back

Slowly enveloping me

So I can see the pitch darkness

It throws in front of me

Into which I'm passing

As into a million stars

I could be just standing here

With no way to tell you

If I didn't know you feel it too

Temporary as birds

Some eternity has touched

Dear Valentine

To The Pleasant Clinic I drove

To get my second shot but got

A little lost at first I crawled

Around the mall feeling the disaster

Of so many deaths circling until

I found the right line of cars

Pouring slowly through

The cheerful aides and doctor

Who asked where do you want it dear

She called me dear

As the needle plunged

A little love against

so much fear

Did I Valentine

Did I take a rain-check on the world

Did I stumble through the suffering and joy

The most amazing thing on earth

That it still goes on even when

I'm not paying much attention

Did I try to change the subject

When the question of love came up

So you hardly ever noticed

It just happens to be raining today

I noticed that you noticed me

Because I was raining too

But the rain has somewhere else to go

Having blurred our faces

Having from our smiles

Erased all traces

Bedtime Valentine

Maybe I'm forgetting to say

My prayers because

I'm forgetting my prayers

What was I praying for

But the privilege to pray

More noble on my knees

In the lost kingdom of childhood

When I could say bless Mommy

And Daddy and I could solve

Their sadness with a kiss

If you would let me Lord

If I could only trust you

Would never leave me

Unless I left you first

Listening Holds Everything Together Valentine

Listening to my listening 

I separate myself

Into I and me

But there is always

A third we are

Weaving together

Not me but the I

In me this listening

Like a forest lifting

Out of myself

Don't you hear

That faint pounding

On the door

Of your heart

Desert Valentine

Me a rookie in love

You a Rilke in sex

I sit on the floor

At your feet no more

I have founded

A school of my own

To have come after you

Saved me from myself

And from Frank O'Hara

So I owe you a lot

Forgive me if I love

The desert fathers

The old voices now I'm older

Let my cane wither

Into a new flower

Spring Valentine

Pegasus and Satyr

Her two English pugs

Would trot to town with her

To fetch the Sunday paper

And sit and read it in the sun

Over coffee and marmalade

She made the old seem young

Who stood to lose their sight

And left her reverently alone

In that deserted town

Blooming like the cereus at night

So the moths would come

And fertilize her womb

With a trillion stars

See now Horatio she comes

Sophie von Kuhn's Valentine

She called herself Sophie

But her first name was Christiane

And her last name means bold

At about the same age Mary reached

When she collapsed at the angel's feet

Feeling the I come into her

Little suffering Sophie died

Announcement of a similar kind

Thrilled through her willing blood

So he with whom nothing happened

Could enter the darkness of her love

And sing like John the Baptist

Christening her alive or like Raphael

All night painting his brave Madonnas

L's and A's Valentine

When I looked up at the stucco wall

I saw two faces etched by the trowel

Of some unaware worker's hand

Hurried scrawls at the end

Of a long and sweaty afternoon

I couldn't immediately fish them out

From the swirling throbbing lines

But then at once they both appeared

One an old man's fiery gaze

One eye open and the other shut

As if he saw both worlds at once

His wild hair streaming in a frozen wind

The other in profile obviously young

Who looked about to scream or fly

Into the pavement of the sky