Morning Truce Valentine

I'm not exactly in a hurry

Satan says and Wormwood

The novice angels stare back

From across the lake at them

Where their bright armies hide

Alert for the next right wave

Let's have breakfast first together

Down on the beach in the breeze

Comb through our treaties

The ones we'll keep and leave

Let our great general the sun

Tell us again the stories

Of when we were young and laughed

Off our quarrels by day's end

Building Stones Valentine

It may seem like a little stone

In the urgent stream of time

Our daily troubles among

So many other stones and boulders

But don't lose feeling for the current

The knots and weaving of the flow

How it idles in corners among minnows

Forced into sandbars and swamps

Heading for the falls and wide

Deep stretches through open fields

Leaving you speechless on the shore

This river feeds a million lakes of stars

And then passes into a million oceans

Which on closer inspection

Are themselves just stones

Summery Valentine

My aunts Molly Reet Tillie Nennie

And their older sister my mother Dodie

And Daddy Joe and wild uncle Buddy

And on the other side Frank and Bridget

Uncles Mike and Jack and Gerald

Hallie Anna and Moody

All gone now from my summers

And all their children my cousins

I never got to know now strangers

French Canadians and Irish immigrants

Who taught me the art of laughter

And showed me the elm trees then

Living among them and welcomed me

To their dark lakes in the north woods

And still join me in my journey

And wait for me to catch up

Finally Valentine

She told the kind chemist

What could be counted

Wasn't worth knowing

If the soul must be ignored

She shouted it from the back

Of the classroom when he

Was in the middle of a sentence

Amazement preceded muffled laughter

And then a pall descended

And everyone stood still

For a moment staring into space

It was a proud and tactless thing she did

But someone finally had to say it

Every Day Now Valentine

Plans cancelled lives ended

And a friend taking photos fell

Lay in pain on the ground alone

More than one broken bone

But somehow went on aiming

That phone and snapping

Each picture a cry for help

As her eyes faded from the sky

She was like the man left beaten

Waiting for the Samaritan to come

Or proud Saul thrown from his horse

The lightening of another hit-and-run

But how else can the spirit get through

If it not collide with you

Apocalyptic Valentine

I saw the world

Wore a thin disguise

Of many lives

Taken for granted

In the half-light of the full moon

I saw what looked like

My very own brain

Up there pondering

Trying to reflect the sun

I saw the sky between us

And the dark earth below

Sleeping under the stars

From there I could see

All the seals were broken

And the heavens come open

Right Here Valentine

Chasing my glasses

I found the secret

Of self-deception

It wasn't buried

Under some stones

The logs of an old ship

Or the bones of a lost city

They were where I left them

When I turned away

Slipping from one life

To another on the street

A blur of moving faces

Until I come back to yours

Right here all along

Morning Star's Valentine

A man who lived by dying

Regularly having to resuscitate 

Himself with trips to the lakes

Long train rides reading darkness

Who had to push his soul back down

When it would try to leave his body

But they were like playmates

His body and his soul

Rivals and allies

A man who died by living

Into the stillness of a deep affection

So in the end he became a child 

Again a light so bright

It brightened even heaven

Valentine in the Distance

How far from you the shore

If I were a rudderless ship

And you had a map

Of the waves and could chart

My exact location

In the delicate weaving

Of light and air

Or I could be a plane

Flying without instruments

And three hundred passengers

Looking out the windows

Into clouds and you were the one

Light I could see to safety

If I remember how to land

I'm Ready Valentine

I'm ready or not for you now

To drop into my mind all at once

To occupy all its rooms and hallways

With your burning presence

To walk out into its starry fields

Under the worrisome mountains

My mind the world for you

And I am obliterated and restored

And taken up by the one thought

For which my mind was made

A drop to hold the ocean of you

Ready or not for your heart

To start beating in me

Your breathe to breath me

Death's Wake Valentine

At death's wake

We all came to celebrate

But the more we drank

And the more we ate

The soberer we got

Finally death sat up in his coffin

And grinned an I'm sorry grin

It was all a ruse

To get you here

But I won't apologize

From the beginning

I told you the truth remember

But you wouldn't listen

All those times I nudged you awake

Grasping for life and limb

Aurora Valentine

On Heart Lake in a dark house

But if you boat out

To the darkest deepest spot

Which must at the same moment

Touch the highest most distant point

The midnight sky can reach

If you align your heart with them

As a dot equidistant shore to shore

You will feel the sunrise

On the other side of the world

Simply because you chose to

How the light of the sun

Passes through the earth

Penetrating everything until it comes

To you old grandmother freely

Sitting on water under the stars

Yes even to you some midnight

Terrible-Beautiful Valentine

This is the terrible-beautiful time

We need to feel most alive

The friendship of our angels

Their sturdiness and calm good sense

Especially if we don't believe in them

Going about their thankless tasks

As we toss and turn in agony

We need to lean into their love

For us those who suffer with us

Their ocean of understanding

About what it's all possibly for

Their long clear explanations

For our intractable natures

And for our goodness also

Which they nurse along

In the infancy of gods 

Two Way Valentine

Certain members of its species

Grow tall and slim in the sun

Sparse of leaves but with

Pale purple flowers in abundance

While other fellows of its kind

Spread in the shade around

The trunk of a tree alone

Thick with green but only

A few deep violet flowers show

Sometimes on warm afternoons

I feel its two colors must be a form

Of a consciousness of its survival

Whether to bear many and go on

Or settle for a few bright gems

Hoarded up for another time

Daily Valentine

It is after all this daily wonder

That is responsible for everything

The way it keeps widening out

One time a sky another a lake

Spell-bound alone in its power

Each thing with its distinct becoming

Something else going in

And out of time and space

The daily secret collisions with it

When I want to touch your face

Suddenly appearing in my mind

The daily eternities of trees

Climbing further and further up

Urged on by the stars to leap

One to One Valentine

About your neck I placed the noose

I wanted to be rid of you

Forgetting the soul is immortal

Upon your head I placed a crown

And we lived like David did

Among sheep and pomegranate trees

I sent that angel to help you unravel

The tired knots of shame

Through your kiss I came

To death's burial

To show you how it's done

If I ever had a child

It would be you

If I ever had a friend

Mona Replies to Her Onlookers Valentine

May you not to the moment of my smile

Ascribe only a mother's or a lover's wile

Or a woman scorned or compromised

Mounting her refusal of her time

Or any element of sad bemusement

As if caught in the trance of the world

Unaware of the before and after

Finding some peace in line and pigment

I never knew in my forgotten life

I am the Madonna of a soul

Come back from the treachery

Of bitter disappointment long ago

Awaiting your arrival

In my actual arms

Leonardo's Signature Valentine

Her caution was to catch

The clouds more caringly

To try to feel in the moisture rising

The moment when the flames appear

Dancing on the lake

Far out she could see the Victory

Of the world a painting

Of flaming battleships

By a man who stole from his teacher

The worst parts of his style

In her youth she had been a sailor

And wore a garnet on her throat

No one has ever painted the sea

She saw but she loved that painter

The one who would betray her

With a silver kiss

Proven Valentine

It is the proof I love you

In the skimmed-over muddle

Of our nights spent dreaming

Could you think of a more ridiculous

Way to say it than hibiscus

I mean I'm all soft angles

My skin consumed by bees

And I've noticed there's something resentful

On my way back over here

In most solid things

Being chained up that way

I wondered when it would all explode

Love finally emerge from under its weight

And begin to speak for itself

No need of proof or witness 

First and Last Valentine

I contract as the world expands

I seem to be everything and nothing

To myself until you arrive

But what knowledge I have of myself

Is like groceries in your arms

Leaves and fish and apples

While you survive on a strict

Diet of dry air and light

We are each other's food

And someone else sets the table

And carries in the steaming plates

And pours the Cheni blanc

Our first and last supper

This life I place on the altar

Of your hand my constant guest

One Seed Valentine

I trust the torah of just one seed

To unravel a whole new testament

I trust the air to nourish it

And the ground to fall away

As it rises I trust the scent

Of its flower drawn in

From the field of the stars

The night its lover

And the sun with no purpose

But to stroke its face

And encourage its progress

That one flower for which

The entire earth was made

Even if it goes unnoticed

I trust it with my life

Always Valentine

I wanted to say something wonderful

Once in a while and you would smile

But the ladderback's come back

To our yard this spring her squawk

Like lightening tearing the air 

And I keep losing my place

In the book of our revelations

Though I follow the words with my fingers

I wanted to touch the texture

Of this painted world with you

But even my you keeps changing

Though I know it's always just you

My one stranger and beloved

My struggle my friend

Tell Me Your Secret Valentine

The secret of my hibiscus is red

She wants me to live in flames

She says to practice her intensity

She has overcome the dead

Her leaves are her many lives

The things she loved and left behind

Out of my one bloom she says

I've carved a thousand seeds

And even if only mysteriously

A few come back to thrive

I will be content she says

With a look of sorrow on her face

The secret of red is my hibiscus

She rushes through my blood

Touching You Valentine

The fate of five hibiscus shrubs

In the desert is in my hands

Each year I have to plant

Another passion vine

If I ever hope to learn

How flowers become butterflies

The three dogs next door

Tell me when the mailman's here

Voices not yet words

Travel over the walls like birds

Leaving the heat behind

I am alone in my bucolic splendor

Snug as the bumble-bee

In his cave in the pomegranate tree

From here I can touch

Every single thing in the world

More Valentine

You my hairy caterpillar body

You tawny soft-shelled egg

You waiting cave or earthen hut

You secret creek running

To the source and back

Snatching light from my sight

And carrying it swiftly through

Underground tunnels and 

Under bridges into the open

Pasture land of my brain

Where I abandon you

In search of some lost elixir

That will save you from myself

Don't you see I want you to be more

Than picked flowers in a jar

More than this morning I bring back to you

Yet Another Easter Valentine

The flight-path of an angel

A rainbow hurries above

Saying she'll be back for us

As soon as she is able

But please don't just stand around

Waiting like an abandoned castle

To be claimed or torn down

Work on your levitation

Think of spring as a temple

Lifting up from the ground

You could still sprout again

One with everything that's rising

You could still touch its wounds

And know they were no fable

Lost Saturday Valentine

Who are you under the ground

Who wants to know

It would be pleasing to know

I can be pleasing to know

Don't you want me to know

Who you are to me

When you know let me know

Is that a fence between us

Or just the way you smile

Pass me everything you know

Surely you'll turn up in the end

If I just let you go

Did we not meet in the dream-halls

Of love and hate back then

And fought and were friends

Good Friday Valentine

Imagine you would have to die

This kind of dying surely

Among all deaths the worst

The most soul-shattering merely

To observe from a distance

It going on as in a story

That haunts the earth

You don't have to believe a thing

Not to be overcome by it

Even if you prefer historical fiction

Or your own old religion of self

There's still something unavoidably

Tragic and moving and central

About this story if you can feel

Anything at all