Only Valentine (for Mt. Tamalpais)

His friend does not appreciate

The mockingbird's return

As much as he used to

He feels he is losing touch

With trees and says aloud

The mountain is only good

For hiking the parched gullies 

For crossing he is losing

Sight of any longing

To belong to all this

Mineral manifestation of the gods

He says only the sea can save him

His first and last love

Even if it's only a memory

Seen from a mountain top

Audition Valentine

A panoramic picture

Of the history of the earth

Hovers above his head

The not-yet stars floating out

Into the great sea space

And he can hear a woman singing

Her heart out down the street

In the background of the beginning

When the earth trembles into being

The youngest of her sisters

And the first to leave home

Defying the neighbors and the gods

With her singing alone

Pumpkin Valentine

 Brilliant.

A self-portrait? 

Where's that candle?

My Once and Future Valentine

You don't have to kneel

To plant the over-winter seeds

Hollyhock and sweet alyssum

But it is a kind of proposal

To assume a reverential posture

That the earth become a bride

A first promise to be faithful

To stay alive and loving her

Even if some of the seeds

Don't flower you planted them

It is good if your knees hurt

And your arms ache a little

That you live in constant anticipation

Human Valentine

Every day he tries to get something done

Often not what he hoped it would be

For example to carry one word

And follow its thread so that

Whatever's going on outside

Something permanent is being

Sustained on the inside

Today's word is human

As it has been for many days

It all depends on the season

Whether the word is covered

With the snows of summer

Or the falls of spring to him

What is human is what can sing

Overlooked Valentine

I skipped a page and had

To come back to it to find

Still nothing written here

Its blank abandoned gaze

Like the open mouth of a bird

Said feed me feed me

But I refused it words

How could I improve

The purity and silence

Of its several parallel horizons

So we just stared at one another

Blankness calling to blankness

Until suddenly the ink

Grew restless and the poor pen

Could do little to stop it

Like blood rushing from a cut

And expiring on the paper

Whence Hummingbirds and Moths Valentine

Ingenious as a pocket

Happy as a banjo I try

To follow one leaf rocketing falling

Thrown up against the sky

With nothing to regret

It was just this one being

Among so many similar beings

Released from the cocoon of the tree

(how could hard wood unfold

Such fleshy wings)

Still every fall I have to turn

My tree around to the sun

So the side that died

Over summer can leaf again

Free As Destiny Valentine

All he could say was what he saw

Alone when he objectified himself

When he could take a striking overview

Of his life and stand in judgement of it

Among a rank of grimacing angels

Who had warned him not to go there

That the beauty and the evil of the world

Would overwhelm and tame him

Though he pleaded there was no other way

And in the end they had to let him go

Assisting from the sidelines

Crying over advice not taken

Sighing over the hard result

As when his heart was stolen

Just as they foretold it would

Every Thursday Valentine

He wished he had a handy-man

Who every Thursday would come

And finally get something done

For this man of all thumbs

A worker bee for this drone

Who makes a list for him

Of where to dig or paint

The dripping under the sink

The gutters the broken gate

While he just sits and writes

About his service to the queen

His loyalty to the crown

His plans for a new kind of honey

Such as the world has never seen

Transfigured Valentine

All he wanted was a little garden

Where wanting would go away

Re-absorbed into the green sheen

That keeps starting up again

Clay turtle under yellow Mums

Don't kid yourself he'd say

Mountains of years to get here

But you could still make it in a day

Dogs howling behind the gate

At a freight train creeping past

The moon for its caboose

Sitting late into the darkness

Drunk on the swirling stars

All his senses breaking loose

Mt. Tamalpais Valentine

Wide open for business

Mt. Tamalpais stirs

Enlightenment customers

An anxious queue of ants

With the sun for sale

Many fashionable colors many

Sizes with prices slashed

And planned surprises

When you reach the summit

Of the barely-climbing cost

Where kind Tamalpais moves

To give it all away

The light all wrapped and shining

Delivered in a day

Wearing the Mountain Valentine

Don't we have work to do

And yet I find you staring

At the aspen or searching the clouds

(There are no clouds in the perfect blue)

As though you're trying to continue

Some lost dream now half-awake

What mountain are you walking

Around what old trails

Do you hope will lead you

To yourself don't you see

The one behind you and the one

Who runs ahead how your feet

Are wearing the mountain away

Old friend come home to me

Re-Educated Valentine

So I sat in the first grade again

Our shouting valiant teacher drowning

Not waving in the tossing waves

Only the phlegmatics paying attention

I chatted with a smartly-dressed

Young man hiding in a corner

Behind a desk he'd toppled

I admired his vest and shoes

We talked of dogs and cats

I asked which painting

Of the sun coming up in the sea

Was his among the thirty

Each so wonderful and unique

Versions of it living on the walls

Masked Madonna Valentine #2

What is the real difference

Between a veil and a mask

What keeps out and what

Keeps in protectively

The cloth on which your body

Was imprinted for example

Or the sheets where you

Were conceived or a napkin

Over the face of a newborn

Hidden one of my heart

Lady who stood for Isis

At the grocery store

One cool stare

Under so many layers

Masked Madonna Valentine

Between her floppy hat and mask

Her hearing aids and glasses

When she takes one off 

It all collapses they laugh

At her when she answers

A question that wasn't asked

The dim one in her family

Who aspires to poetry to read

To children and the dying

And the dead who are

Not really dead but earnestly

Present for her they laugh

Together taking off their masks

Seaside Valentine

A breeze rumples the umbrellas

Along the empty sunny beach

In one of those Hawaii moments

That drift in and out of my brain

The desert calls home to the sea

The desert rose drops its leaves

Until there are only a few

Pale pink flowers left

The bulbous root has eaten

All its dirt and anything

Can come into the mind

Is it because the sea knows

How to rest how to lay

A body down on sand

 

More Day Valentine

I love how the days are in color

Thrown up on the golden screen

And the nights in black and white

Unfold their mysterious meetings

In the back alleys of dreams

I think of orange the cheerful one

Who at midnight grieves to gray

But at dawn comes streaking back

I put it down to the sun

That love does not stay

Wandering and searching for the one

Who will follow it all the way through

The darkness to the final day

Pleading for mercy for one more day

Song of Ascent Valentine

Some days I just have to

Make myself do things

The will of my will

Engages with some

Higher will softly

Urging me into action

I buckle with determination

Casting off gravity

Ascending from the chair

And I make me walk

Lovely from here to there

Getting something done

The table wiped clean

Something on the stove

Manifesto Valentine

The first nation I belong to

Seeks the dissolution of nations

It wishes we could have long ago become

One earth country

But clearly that will have to wait

My first religion is apocalytic

I mean just seeing one another

We are torn asunder
You invite me from myself

Or rip me apart sweetly

Until I learn to listen

Just shut up and listen

While you undress yourself

And we stand revealed together

Under Construction Valentine

I built my tunes on other tunes

Some stones stolen others borrowed

Taken from tombs and modern ruins

That they go not unsorrowed

And though I grinned when my towers crumbled

A crust of dust still coats my lips

From where their heights were humbled

Settling into a mound of bones

So I had to start again by touch

To read like flesh the lettered wind

And build an arch of whirling

Not of bricks but birds

Dragging my heart along

To its unwritten song

Her Valentine

Someone's motherless mother

Beautiful homeless October

Wandering and begging at corners

How can I be satisfied in the world

With the shopping-cart and rags

You leave behind the useless

Precious things you gather

The heaps of soiled grandeur

Let me sit on the side of the road

With you and ponder the asters

Let no one come to rescue us

Gone beyond words and gestures

Let all we own be scattered

It was only our love that mattered

Beastly Valentine

Years later I still wince

Remembering how I cursed you

The lightening-bolt of my bitterness

Shocked even me

Exposing my self-satisfied

Complacency that I

Had put all that behind me

My hatred and my fear

Something demonic I still

Wrestle to contain

Poor self-pitying beast

Forgive him in your name

That through his suffering and pain

I learn to love again

When Valentine

I put my fortune back

In the cellophane wrapper

Where it said to store

The dreams of my youth

And put my chopsticks down

Friends are a valuable

Resource you read smiling

As I passed you the check

And boxed what's left

For later after a walk

It must have been a birthday

But I can't remember whose

When we had so much to say

And little time to lose

More Valentine

With hardly any fuss or bother

Always straightening its fringe

The lake spreads out

Fresh carpets of morning light

For its amazing guests

The winged and the wingless

Who can enter freely now

The great vestibule of the abyss

Paved with amethyst and ruby

As one by one their names are called

Way out the fishing trawlers

Have already caught the darkness in their nets

But fail to see the derelict on the shore

Content to be left behind

But always wanting more

Intervening Valentine

In the cooling narrow courtyard

Under a drooping pomegranate tree

Like a body heavy with bruises

We sipped coffee and caught up

While a mockingbird assaulted us

With its echoing repeating songs

Matching us word for word

Until we couldn't go on

It was so insistent and enthused

We sat in silent happy sorrow

For the scolding of our lives

And then it was gone

Having mended between us

Yet another wrong

The Beautiful Land Valentine

October is the kindest month

Turning the sky away from us

And then rushing back in a blaze

As if the sun were torn

Whether to stay or go on

Full of last-minute reminders

Intimate rains that crawl into bed

Like an exhausted traveler

Mumbling about the future

He found at the end of

What is it he says

The world and time

But here they lie down together

In sweet October weather

New Moon in Libra Valentine

Not all leaves fall

Not all falls leave

God willing we think

But what about

Willing the good

Who fall like leaves

Loving the beautiful

Wind undressing them

Who having shone once

Are eager to fall

Remember me they ask

We went to school together

Have you forgotten it all

And everything forever

October Valentine

Our summers are like your winters

Great drifts of rolling heat pile up

Like your plowed snow and iced trees

And their silence is almost universal

As when only one bassoon is playing

And the conductor is crying

Not for the melody alone

But because he forgot to kiss

Someone on the way out the door

Your winters grieve for our summers

Our summer letters get lost in the mail

But come our springs and falls

You have to admit it's best

That everything collapses and unfolds

And finally the truth's exposed