Even Valentine

For our separate willing

The world is given

But in heaven we

Will have to toe the line

Joyfully reverently

Through long lectures

And transforming singers

And those who leave early

For long twilight walks

To meet themselves

Coming toward them

Through the woods

Even in heaven I think

We'll have a private life

And fall in love for a while

And not know why and die

Why Capable Valentine

A bucket full of water is capable

Of remembering being rain

A gathered will waits in the water

To be poured out over the heads

Of heroes and failures alike

A bucket full of water is capable

Of projecting itself into the air

Hoisted on tiny hands and feet

Until it reaches the right

Cerulean and blackest clouds

To settle down in once again

But the rain is only capable of falling

In peace or in revenge

While the bucket catches it all to the brim

Capable Valentine

Many very capable people

Don't want to become famous

Don't like to have to sell themselves

And thus do poorly on tests

Group sports or interviews

They are suspicious of too much confidence

So when they come to the door of the castle

They enter the great hall with the crowd

Where the sumptuous feast is laid

And stand in reverence when

The old mothers and fathers file in

The moaning king and the holy vessel

They love a good teacher

Too much to shout a question

And so are quietly expelled

To become their own wandering solution

Mystery Play Valentine

Pursued by our interests

Confirmed by our talents

Lifted into some genius

By the list of players assembled

The audience of angels

Rustling into stillness in the dark

Finally the gardener arrives

The secret protagonist of the play

To speak the prologue of the sun

And carry the stars on stage

In my version he is surrounded

By children and I speechless

Have been poorly cast as one

Awkwardly reaching for his hand

Sometime before the scene is done

Next Valentine

A materially-based 

Grasping of the world

Is the false fairy-tale

From which magic

Has been driven out

And yet even when that happens

Magic persists as magic

Not being of this world

It cannot pass away

Time itself proves indestructible

Building and re-building 

And space has only room

For a stable and a tomb

It's all as simple as the bible

Or your very next thought

Kissed Valentine

This kiss started out

Centuries ago

In an uncertain breeze

So silent you could hear

Leaves uncurling

Distant rain coming closer

You could feel its breathing

On your face this kiss

That had nowhere else to be

Just following its instincts

Just passing through the world

To wind up on everyone's lips

To startle you

Arouse and bless

Forgive Means Free Valentine

I can be a jerk a prick a pain

But just to know that you are mine

My jerk my prick my pain

Relieves me of all sick and shame

And when you say fairy tale to me

Do you mean a lie or a depiction

Of that hidden world we're actually

Living in our true adventures

The reenactments of our dreams

The world is my imagination and you

Objects set against our aim

The world always struggling for attention

And always more of you to come

Until Valentine

That forgotten ballet dancer who said

That marionettes were his master teachers

That only grace can defy gravity

And will like a column of electricity

Down the center of the body 

Become the sword he danced with

Evading the blade from side to side

First they showed him the dance of aloneness

How to swirl into stillness

And fall down on the grass and laugh

How to escape being caught in himself

Until he was ready one day he said

To dance the water dance

The air dance and the dance of fire

Until they would all consume him

Dreaming Valentine

Our dreams still practice the sacred arts

Of story-telling and divining

Each one its own genre and drama

The genius of sleep reveals

Her purpose in vivid pictures

Hidden as stars during the day

How can we sleep knowing

That magic world is there

Frightening us into the courage

To believe in fairy-tales

In which all our dreams

Are coming true as if

Like marionettes we could

Be moved by the grace of gods

Mayfly's Valentine

Mayfly lighting on my knee

Make a wish for me

Tell me how that radiant green

Made you the Mercury of spring

Did you come up through the ranks

Of unpromotable angels

To become the corporal of the green

So now you have to guard the border

Leading from the underworld

Into the kingdom of the green

Checking our passport pictures

Asking the purpose of our visit

We could be the spies of spring

But still you let us enter

If Even Valentine

If even someone blind

As I can see

The light of thoughts

Shaping me

If even someone deaf

As I can hear

The music colors

Of an inner sphere

If even someone lame

As I can walk right

Into another world

Then even someone stubborn

As I can flow

Into the eternal all

Full Mother's Valentine

Finally the world gets out of the way

And the moon deftly comes into her own

Slips loose from her constraining father

And the compromises of her gender

To fully comprehend her splendor

Single regal virgin mother rising

Behold your son who watches you

Sailing into the ethereal blue

Just a few nights we have together

Before your memory melts away

Just a few words exchanged by lovers

About to enter the grave of the sun

Until I return to be your mother

And recognize you as my son

Post Mortem Valentine

How did it go your presentation

Of yourself were you able

To be yourself however others

Perceived you out there in the world

And to get far enough past yourself

That you could let some real thing

Peer through the outer covering

To be a doorway not just a window

Through which others could walk

To remember how you were put together

So precisely through timeless time

And to return as someone's son or daughter

After you have reassembled yourself

Refurbished by the hands of stars

Midway Valentine

Today I set myself the goal

Of just cutting the grass and

Calling a friend but a single

Spider's thread like a tightrope

Swaying in and out of the light

Called me to cross the abyss

Of the day my arms outspread

Zigzagging towards the other side

On my left eviscerating darkness

On my right the consuming sun

Where I could survey the uncut grass

And hear the voice of my uncalled friend

Struggling to keep my balance

Between the living and the dead

Lost Valentine

I misplaced my love

I looked for it everywhere

Not finding it there 

Where I usually put it

You said you hadn't seen it

But it must be somewhere

When do you last remember

Holding it in your hand

I hope I didn't lose it

Swimming out of sight of land

No look now there it is

Surfacing in your smile

As if I could lose that ocean

By drowning for a while

Earth Song Valentine

Earth and water and air and warmth

All that sustains me here on earth

My lightening flesh my rainbow soul

And you who mastermind it all

In streaming plants and lordly clouds

Who strengthen me with falling stars

When I am crushed with worldly fears

And feel I will not make it far

Too much for me too grand your goal

Unless you let me lend your will

And lift me to that lonely hill

My faith grown sour your heart gone still

And I can see like northern lights

Your body flashing in the heights

Found Valentine

I sent my star out wandering one night

Among the billion stars of course it got

Lost at first finding it had taken only

A few provisions the last of the remaining

Drops of courage I had saved

From years trying not to be afraid

But following a distant music

And traveling only at night

Avoiding the glittering cities

And sleeping in the woods all day

Finally it reached that purple ocean

I had always felt was there

And sent back word to me

To come all was prepared

Nameless Valentine

Again that hawk appeared

This time right in my yard

Three strange caws I heard

But when I looked around

He quickly disappeared

I waited for him in the sky

To signal it was not absurd

To see in him some intersection

So far and yet close by

With that other world

An omen or annunciation

Of some fragment of my I

I rushed too soon to claim

The secret of my spirit name

What's Wrong With Appreciation Valentine

Sometimes it's like taking your kids

On a vacation and all they want

To do is fight it's exhausting

Trying to love people who only want

Power who find it hard to be kind

How long can the earth put up with it

To make a bounty and then have it

Thrown out like trash when

There's so much tenderness

Rushing toward us in every

Child's face hidden in every adult's

Self-protective demeanor

Sometimes the only thing that gives me hope

Is to be alone with you and weep

Un-Valentined

The vivid shadow

Of the starfish cactus

In the foreground

Of a greenish puddle

Captive in its ocher pot

How did its lovely flowers

Come to stink of rotting flesh

Was it from jealousy or despair

When the ancient sea departed

Being neither fish nor star

Stranded on the desert floor

Five-petaled cup flies come to sip

And in the center preserved in oil

The little face of love no more

Winter Crossing Valentine

Now we come to the dumbest

Darkest nights of the year

When all the planets huddle

On the other side of the earth

Hidden in the cradle of the sun

And only a handful of icy stars

Shiver above the moony lake

At last we're left on our own

To cross these darkest depths

This no-man's-land of dreams

Like candles without flames

To the land of the unborn

To the light of the farthest star

Each of us sailing to rescue

Our own individual dawn

Birding Valentine

Circling like a conscience

A high faint scream

A red-tailed hawk

Searching for mistakes

Here eat mine I cry

I've lots more than I need

But a mockingbird calls dibs

Always robbing me of words

Probing me with its beak

While a hummingbird watches

And two finches tsk and tsk 

Feasting on my sins

Until all that's left is love

Just enough to feed a dove

Now I Am Your Age Then Valentine

One persistent picture I keep of you

Was when I rented that old whaler's

House in Maine and we sat side by side

In the silence after supper

Out on the long screened porch

Watching the moon come up

And stars seep in with the tide

Somehow we found ourselves alone

Where everyone else had gone I don't

Remember maybe to shop in town

But it was strange like finding

One another in a dream of when

You used to be my mother

And I used to be your son

Forgotten Valentine

If I could regress my little life

To the time of the fairy tales

When forests covered these tired streets

I knew who would play which roles

Like the ailing queen alone

Raising her only son

While her husband went off to war

And that curious boy left to wander

The rocky hills around the shore

Until he stumbled on a witch's lair

Where he learned to read and write

Not in books but air and sunlight

How to cast a spell with bones

Until one day he forgot the way home

Confessional Valentine

When I was very young

I wanted to be a saint

I would preserve my innocence

And slowly penetrate the world

I would be a messenger of peace

And a disgrace to evil men

And taken out and tortured

And hung upon a stake

When I was still a child

I took these horrors to my heart

I knew the fairy tales were real

Of which the earth was just a part

I knew my angel would guide me

And give me the courage to feel

In myself the whole world's soul

Alone With You Valentine

Slowly the air grows chillier

And the gray unconscious clouds

Dreaming of rain or snow

Cover the deserted town

Of my mind population one

I have the feeling I'm being

Looked at but there's

No one here except my angel

Who of course is simply

Waiting to be seen

Who believes in me

But doesn't speak a word

I have the feeling I don't exist at all

Except as she is keeping me in her gaze

Breathing me in and out

These nights these days