We Were Always Here Valentine

We sang before we spoke

Symphonic on a single note

Were air before we breathed

We dreamed before we woke

Our dreams became reality

We knew before we thought

We flew before we walked

Words that were not yet dead

We read before we wrote

A head before a brain

A pulse before a heart

A memory before experience

A future searching for a past

Returning even before we left

Still Unwritten Valentine

I once wrote a poem

On every stone 

Of an Oregon

Stony beach

And sat alone

Waiting for my editor

To come the sea

To wipe them clean

With waves not praise

A few skipped over

The rosy water and the foam

But more how can

I put it sank

Like a stone

When Is a Life a Life Valentine

Half of me survives

In the quiet terror

That I am losing

The thread of what's

Crucial in life

That I have let go of time

And really am on my own

Floating in space

While the other half of me

Is just so happy to be here

In the world with you for a while

Some evenings are eternal

Some mornings the two of me alone

Commiserate over coffee

And tell each other stories

Already Valentine

I see now how the very concept of you

Builds up from a movement of air and light

Which never entirely touches the ground

Though it used to be something concrete

Flesh and blood hands and feet

When I try to take you in

Something always holds back in me

My overwhelming only reaches so far

Though you are never harsh or pushy

When I'm not ready to receive you

But I can already sense a little

How you have entered me

Like a ship to the harbor

With your cargo of forever

The Good Thief's Valentine

Taste of cobwebs in my mouth

Words like bundled flies one green moth

Trapped itself a little larynx

Its wings still fluttering

To the hum of its impact

Bringing the hairy spider to inject

Its freezing poison

Stilling the web again

Then the long waiting for the word

Stuck like a sword in the side

Tearing the web in two

A dim presentiment of cloudy blue

As I look across at you

Some paradise breaks through

Escaped Valentine

Today the neighbor's hen's hilarity

Rivals my cat's still beauty sleep

A politician and a monk at prayer

While a small white butterfly

Douses the yard all the green

With fading drops of silver

And then a naked toddler

Comes running down the street

Exultant as Christ himself

How many times he's fallen

Written on his bloody knees

But look they didn't even

Give him shoes to save

His holy feet or a shirt

To cover his humanity

Legendary Valentine

There must be a library hidden somewhere

Like the ruined one in Ephesus

Or in the invisible City of Kitezh

Hovering above the yellow lake

Where the history of feeling is kept

Piled high with manuscripts and scrolls

Ranks of scribes hard at work

Passing one dead language

Into another living text

The annals of rage alone

Must take up several walls at least

With their tedious commentaries

Until you come to the crypt

Where a small bejeweled book

Illuminates itself in an alcove

Its one word love unread inside

Unborn Valentine

First the sun creates the eyes to see it

Then the sound the ears to hear it

The canals of Venice makes me think

The bells of great cathedrals

But what did the light feel

Peering through the hole of the eye

When it heard the world was ready

To be touched and tasted

When arms and legs were called

Out of a certain destination

The words that willed the mouth

To feed them and the beating

That pounded the heart from nothing

And lifted it into its present position

Did You Get Enough of Life Valentine

Did you eat did you sleep

Did you get shaken by a dream

Did you run to the sea

To feel the sun go down

Did you talk all day

And never say a lie

Did you refuse to frown or fawn

Did you have a quiet cry

Did you do the dishes

And take a book out to the shore

Did you glance across to me

From a thousand miles away

Did you throw that kiss I caught

Just to leave me wanting more

Vestal Valentine

Her ears have fluttered into wings

To develop a deeper hearing

But otherwise you would mistake her

For a young woman circa 300 BC

From the way her hair is tied back

In a serious bun a ribbon in front

Did this mean virginity in those days

Her life-size head is all I've salvaged

A copy of a copy in cement

But I love to touch her cheek

And rub the dust from her lips

Which somehow have preserved

The first clear secrets

Which she is about to speak

Proven Valentine

This spring's miracle is just

That the yellow swallowtail

Came back to my yard

And made me a man again

Despite my warring nature

Who watches for such things

As proof of a god so small

He must be the last of his kind

With just enough light left

To stumble into wings

Or else he is just the first

Of many angels who make it across

That invisible abyss

We who would not come to him

So he must come to us

Hard To Tell Valentine

Right away this morning

On the soul's first day

They started pounding

Down the street I couldn't

Tell if they were building

Or tearing something down

And then the shovels arrived

And I couldn't tell if they

Were planting bodies or trees

So hard and loud they worked

I thought if I looked over my wall

I'd see the neighborhood laid bare

As a bombed-out city or else

A marvelous garden stretching everywhere

Sunday's Valentine

While we were gone away

A wind descended and rearranged

The stones I'd placed on the table

From my starry circle it drew a line

And swept the fallen petals and leaves

Neatly into corners of the yard

Leaving the space still trembling

Like the cast-off skin of a snake

Still melting in the air

Some great force had been here

Leaving nothing untouched the same

Though it could have destroyed

It all you could see that in the way 

Its tenderness betrayed its strength 

How it rose up victorious and was gone

Fridays' Valentine

Where we stand now

A being so far beyond us

Enters our lonely bones

With a shiver and a sigh

At last the deed is done

Like a key thrust in a door

Thrown open on the heavens

At least as a conjecture

A possible avenue to explore

But only leading to another door

Nailed shut in the heart

We struggle to open  or ignore

Where love lies buried

But is rising in a cloud

Oh Come On Now Valentine

I asked my friend of all

The people he has known

In this world would he want

To meet again in his next life

Not his parents or brother he said

Neither side of his family

No one he was especially close

To in school or the menial jobs

Like ants crossing a table it took

To get to a certain truce with himself

The solitude it takes to own

The ball you've thrown

Returns for you to catch

And looked at me just you

Even Valentine

Even the common fly

That glistens in the stink

Of bodies under a perfect sky

Must learn to think

Must long to become a butterfly

And take the steps from being

One afternoon to knowing why

Must climb up the ladder

As part of a conscious I

And humbly take its place

Now that the word's

Been spoken aloud

Now that we've seen

His face

Possible Valentine

When the flowers of the future

Overcome our blindness

And the new animals then

With tongues of flame

Bring home their prophecies

And the children who survive

The holocaust of the earth

Having never believed in death

Gather to play and sing

Their sparrow songs of praise

And quiet lamentation

Then maybe suddenly you'll recall

This day when you denied

The possibility of love's perfection

Reappearing Valentine

Today a gentle wind

Is all he's wearing

And a smiling light

Lifted from the sea

But I smell burning questions

On his breath held back

In a patient urgency

As he approaches me

Until we're face to face

Do you see it now he says

Daring me to refuse

Isn't this what you wanted

From the beginning of the world

A love you will never lose

Prima Donna Dove Valentine

She came so close

I turned aside and sat very still

To make her feel safe

And give her some privacy

So she could make

The next move down

To the waiting water

I knew how shy she was

But I turned back to look

Too soon just as she bowed

Her head to drink

And off she flew

She too fleeing death

For as long as she can

Frog's Valentine

Can there ever be less of the future

Than there is more of the past

A riddle balanced on a lily-pad

The first perfection of time

Before it started to know

Its own thoughts and feelings

The clock-body and the running down

To a shadow of its former self

And yet time is the only place

Eternity so far has found

Where it can come into its own

And feel the breeze on its face

And not have to worry about forever

And just plunge into it all

Broody Valentine

Is it alarm or laughter at the world

That sets my neighbor's chicken off

Crowing all morning or maybe

It's pride and joy over one egg

Offering to start a new world

Right here in the middle of the city

Unseen I picture her brooding

On the coming civilization

Silent through the afternoon

All night the egg dissolves

And in the morning she lays another

Crowing and crowing you

Have only a few days left

What is taking you so long

You Are All That Is Not Just Me Valentine

After so much so little

After too many too few

I still cling to this body

As if it was all I had

So small a hope in another

I hold on to this hopeful life

Resentful of my dependency on it

And loving that it brings me to you

I struggle to take it with me

Broken irreparably into me and you

But I promise to come back for you

With a whole army of light

And crown you in the place of God

Friend's Valentine

I want to thank you for your bravery

Which sometimes embarrasses me

And for the gift of your exuberance

Which lifts me out of my senses

A creek in spring I mean

Your flair for flowing over stones

Like me to wear them down

Somehow you've married

The warrior to the child

Which is all love needs to succeed

And overcome its suffering

Are there more like you in the world

Is there a country that you come from

Will you ever forgive me