Why Did They Come To This Country Valentine

At the end of a broken line

At the end of another year

You find yourself besieged

Alone in a house of trouble

Uncertain whether to oppose

The snow or just walk out into it

An immigrant of your own recovery

The little bits of sanity you grasp

A squeaking dove on the roof

A circle of sun crossing your head

Sleeping with your boots on

And your gun in your hand

Who would have thought that this

Was victory this struggling bliss

Placed Valentine

Where a massacre occurred

One of the holy places on the earth

After a few hundred years

The victims returned and built

A school of the living arts

Where flower arranging led on

To the geometry of the stars

Dispersing its students like seeds

In an explosion of gratitude

Into the general population

But a long time the killing will go on

Before some child can stare out

Her drowsy classroom window

At the whole world a holy place

But Not Of It Valentine

All of these parts of ourselves

That come from distant places

Or just across that field

Arriving and departing

I want to know them all

But how could I intrude

When we collide and coalesce

Into this world for a while

On our sacred honor

Each in our own way

To come to the spirit in things

Hidden in macaroon clouds

And in the smallest gesture

That you are alive inside

For Murdered Children Everywhere Valentine

Searching for a way to sneak

Death back into my daily life

It's hard to be natural with enough

Aplomb and tact to carry it off

Not my death but death itself

That it still goes on

This dematerializing earth

Eventually the heat

Congealed into the sun

It was a Sunday I remember

You were dying but the wind

Was just getting started

Just getting up on its feet

Ready to carry us away

Because You Asked About The Wind Valentine

Mostly it's snowing

Or about to snow

And the wind rains down

On the roof all night

Blow after blow

Artfully in the morning

It stands back to gaze

At its masterpiece you

Huddled under the wings

Of its brilliant whiteness

How long can you wait

If what you wait for

Is already here think of it

The heart is the only thing

That sustains us it is a lake

It is only three miles around

And deep as an archangel

Just Asking the Solstice Valentine

Is it a minor curious thing

That when we say the word love

The O is silent we say uh

As if we're not quite sure 

Writing it one way

And speaking it another

We put it at the end of letters

When really it wants to be

In the greeting the salutation

Right after the place and date

On which it happens to appear

And how can we overlook that

Blessing O that goes on 

Sounding like a birth or death

Christmas Again Valentine

When I close my eyes I can see

The immensity of the darkness

And slowly a hole of light

Wears through and grows

Almost blinding but then

An inky wave rolls in

Completely covering it again

The darkness takes a breath

And then slowly the light

Creeps in again and plunges

Through the clouds and then again

The darkness easily consumes it

But all the while what great beings

Are pacing back and forth

And what new earth is being born

Doubled Valentine

We get our mathematics wrong

Two is the first number

And one comes after it

But only when they unite

And then a third can be born

The one we usually place first

Is really only half of two

Searching for its other part

But by itself it can do little

And often leads a lonely life

It knows two comes first

And has merely usurped its place

But when two ones come together

Someone greater than either is born

Intervening Valentine

After many years of having my back

My angel finally sat down beside me

You know I love you she said

But let's get something clear

It's time for us to work together

In a closer more conscious way

How we used to when you were young

Before you pushed me away

And even though you refused to see me

And burned all my letters unopened

I never stopped holding you close

You were the brother I never had

But now it's time to let you know

How much my life depends on you

To finally let me in

Practicing Valentine

I went out in my pajamas

But came back for my parka

It's very cold today

And since I was young

I've had a thing for sitting

Bundled up out in the cold

In the sun for an hour or two

I can be perfectly warm

Inside with a book when

Some strange longing

Pulls me out into the cold

It's like sitting in the fire

Of heartlessness and scorn

With only my angel to keep me warm

Speaking Valentine

Something stops me at the surface of things

Is it my fear of heights as I look down

Into the deep darkness within

It's like all I can see is a blank wall

And yet my rejected mind

Thrown back upon itself senses

Movement behind the wall

I can hear a breeze speak

A few syllables like leaves

Enough to know there's something

Present on the other side

Like someone practicing the speech

She will deliver my angel

When she finally breaks through

How Buddha Comes to Christmas Valentine

His temple was only a step away

Having swept the paths clean

And thrown the doors wide open

He had invited his old friends

Plato and Elijah over

And all their children

For the festivities of light

When he would ascend with them

To release the soul of the world

Within the enormity of heaven

Constellations peeping down

Where they would drink wine together

On the porch and eat sweet bread

While they waited impatiently

For the little family to gather

And love finally be born

Our Fathers' Valentine

What a sad world you've grown

And we your children once

Just wanted to be like you

But you made riches your family

And we with our silly love

Abandoned chasing after you

Haven't you noticed the more

Wealth you reap the lonelier

The more desperate you become

Until your fame swallowed you up

But it was never about the money

The funny thing it never is

You were always that frightened boy

Mistaking love for worldly power

Getting to Christmas Valentine

If only my angel so vague

Could get a word in edgewise

But finally she calms me down

We sit together in the open sun

While she reads from a book

Where it's all been written down

And down go my defenses

As her voice rises and falls

I barely remember a word she speaks

But the rhythm carries me on

Till we come to the heart of the story

And for a moment she can't go on

And puts the book down

She still can't quite believe it

That he would decide to be born

In the most forgotten town on earth

And leave us in heaven to mourn

What Is Christmas Valentine

Every Christmas we return

To the place where we were born

Called back by everything we touched

To forget everything we've known

And slip back into our mother's womb

As she walks through the crowded town

For a few moments we go back

To the comfort of being unborn

Not yet anything the world

Has ever known as if

We left something behind

That could link us to a crime

Some face we overlooked

That must be our own

Funeral Birth Valentine

He upstaged Christmas

With his sudden death

The mourners sang carols

And the children carried

Lanterns to the burial

Or maybe he planned it this way

To depart on a festive note

And couldn't wait for the child

To come but had to run

Down the road to meet him

To be there at the mother's labor

And hold the father's hand

After all someone had to feed the donkey

Someone had to tend the lambs

Advent Calendar Valentine

Examining the conscience of the sky

The great moral principles floating by

Frayed at the edges filling with light

Or rain refusing to fall

Ever-flowing reflections

Of what they see below

With some days the clear

Radiance of blue breaking through

So sincere and pure

Or piling up in awesome ranks

Ready to deliver the final blow

A rain of ashes

Or the peace of snow

Estella's Valentine

I wanted to try to understand

What she couldn't understand

About the longings of her friend

It seemed she had taken her words

Right to the end of reason

Where an abyss opened up

On the other side of which her friend stood

Waving a vision of another world

Was it a failure of imagination

That she felt such despair

How could they be friends again

One locked in intellectual torpor

The other reading things in the air

This seemed the central question of our time

Maybe the only question ever

Exchanging Gifts Valentine

To you in a vast blizzard

If you don't mind the dirt

I'm sending a clump of new grass

Dug from my desert yard

But only if you send me

Some of the crystal 

Silence you'll be rich with

And a strand of that blue

Morning after the chaos

Settles over the lake

Speechless of course you'll be

As Simeon having seen

This green falling from heaven

And rising from the earth

Not Yet Valentine

If all the things that have happened

Are outnumbered by those that haven't

If everything we've forgotten gets

Its memory restored if we drive

Out into the landscape on a whim

Where one stream flows past us

And the other carries us along

If we are with the new trees lifted

While their other half plunges down

Roots in darkness leaves in sun

Will we come to the lost mountain

Where all that hasn't happened yet

Is born and find ourselves at last

Numbered among its stones

A Right Valentine

Trying to put things right

You pick the wrong time and place

So all you saved to say is lost

What's true sounds false

Your love a contradiction in terms

A misunderstanding understood

Staring you in the face

Unforgivable love that comes

Too early or too late

A charm gone stale

A daftness with a certain grace

That strips you down and bare

All that can and can't be healing

In a warm embrace

Musical Chores Valentine

Doing the dishes

I put on Wagner

For the hoovering

I move to Mahler

For the dusting

Usually Nirvana

Or the nuns of Santa Ana

Making the bed I prefer

Rhythm and blues

Or the old Gospel tunes

Or taking a shower

I favor Satie

Or something cleansing

From Debussy

Sleepless Valentine

You can't be serious

Writing a poem

There's too much at stake

The frivolous must wake up

And sit in the front row

Watching itself being taken apart

Demeanor and tone must go home

The audience whittled down to one

Small child on a dark stage singing

To see one you must be alone

Where you might never come back

If you go there unprepared

With too few sleepless nights

Still Valentine

Six sad exuberant historians

I studied over the holiday break

Four evangelists and two fairy tales

As they appeared in the European

Middle Ages and nothing of what

Was going on in China or

The Yucatan Peninsula at that time

I mean where were you in 1492

Or 1942 never in the same place twice

It startled me how much the basic forms

We keep and continue to dress up

With new and interesting characters

All the old traditions of master and slave

And still Jesus comes and is born

Birthday Valentine

Near as someone must be

Who lives inside of us

Yet far away as a touch

Or voice of greeting or goodbye

What are you dead making of us

With your invisible weaving

How will you rouse us

From sleep to see you again

Just slipping back into memory

Behind the locked door

Of your beautiful body

While we linger here

On the darker side of love

Haunted by your heart

Gratitude Valentine

They say your heart swells

If you're truly grateful like a balloon

It exits your mouth with a sigh

Of relief rising to join the clouds

And the birds going by slowly

So you can savor it

They say when a kindness

Comes home to you as if

From a foreign country

You start to breath again

The pure intoxicating air

Of our mountain homeland

For a moment if you dare

December Valentine

It's December here

Because November is gone

You can take it out 

Of the oven now

And let it cool on the counter

Some of the trees I remember

But most are bare as days

Largely a blur forgotten just

A few leaves saved

And those unfallen remain

To rattle on impractical

To try to save them all

Baked and eaten like bread

A scent I only recall