Built To Burn Valentine

They say it is possible to truly see

The soul of a burning building ascend

When out of the flames the captive light

Resumes its radiant form and rises

To hang suspended above the earth

Transparent as a window into the future

And a new stone is added to the city

Of clouds being constructed there

While the builders stand among the ashes

The incense of forests lifting

Warming themselves on the remnant coals

They say it is possible to truly feel

Reassured of such ascension

Train Of Time Valentine

Waiting at the empty station

After the last day's left

Listening for the arrival

Of the next new night

In that little space between

The chaos of the world

And the kindness of the stars

Stopping everything for a few

Conscious moments to look

Into the maps of the faces we love

Before the future sweeps us away

Huffing and puffing into the station

We immigrants bound for eternity

We faithful friends of time

Serious Valentine

I woke up this morning well

And blessed and thought

I will call my brother who lives

In pain without complaint

I have a photo of him around ten

Sitting in a blooming apple tree

The black and white Ontario lake

Sparkling behind him a serious boy

Who would not be comforted by excuses

Before the polio left him stranded

In an iron iceberg we were never

Close in the sense of knowing

One another I left before

He might have needed me

Before I could be someone

Who is wanted as a friend

But now we're old and I

Our whole lives as strangers

Will try again before the end

Innocents' Valentine

On this holy rainy night

A dream revealed to me

The mystery of the earth

How the children were despoiled

By a series of evil deeds

Before love itself could come

Into the world with so much 

Catching up to do 

And how it's still

In its early days

Of recovering all that's lost

So not to give up hope

For no one has even an inkling yet

Of its all-consuming strength

Solstice Valentine

This midnight of the year's stopped clock

The cat's-eye moon is almost closed

It nestles up against Mercury and Mars

Like two dice rattling in a lucky cup

Thrown down upon the clear dark

Auguring our future gains and losses

Laying down before us all

We'll have to face or run from

The resurrections and the crosses come

The quiet circling of the vultures

The rainy afternoons of love

Hovering there in the seed of the sun

With you its chosen holy ground

And only the impossible to grow

Under The Tree Valentine

How many days and nights will it take

For us to comprehend infinity and feel

It when it shows up among us

Like a bird chirping in a blizzard

Or a suffering child or even

To come upon its straying light

Over open fields and dark woods

Sitting comfortably in the rushing train

Of eternity when will we get there

To receive its boundless gifts

Doled out to us in little bits of glory

Or when it opens up itself to us finally

The immeasurable the endless

The ample presence of its love

Signal's Valentine

Feed me I said and I was fed

Strong meat wine and bread

Bless me I said and I was read

Firm words to wake the dead

And lo the dead did shine in books

Just as I was assembling my mind

Trying to picture its delicate

Mechanisms and possible purposes

Its dials like a radio its lights

And I could switch the stations

Control the volume if not the static

But where is the signal coming from

These someone else's words I speak

As if they could strike me dumb

Ides of December Valentine

This world is only Maya in the  morning

In the darkness when the fading light

Of dreams slowly merges with

The rising light of day and we

Are neither asleep nor awake laying there

But paused at the point

Of crossing over in the middle

Of the swaying bridge of time

Of two minds and two hearts really

Loving both worlds equally and torn

Sorry to leave you but I'll be back

Like someone with two families

Every day a sad departure

Every day a welcome home

Kaspar's Valentine

It's hard to think of a single sin

That wasn't committed against him

Or the cleverness of their execution

Motherless fatherless locked away

In a darkened room for years

A whole childhood devoured

But they say he had two wooden

Horses to love and play with

Feeding them first on the bread

And water he was given every day

What could be so feared in him

He had to suffer such a fate

And even after his release it followed him

Except for those few summer months

When he learned to dance and paint

Amazingly delicate leaves and flowers

Leaving us stunned with his forgiveness

Child's Valentine

When the clouds of history convene

Their annual conference in a dream

Full of grumbling-weeping storms

And lightening-bolts like augurs

The darkness comes back to us

Immense as falling snow

And we are summoned to appear

Before the throne of a single star

To hear the verdict of a child

Echo through the empty fields

The dark days of our renewal

The sun's first steps returning

Light extinguished to a simple flame

That in our hearts is burning

Logging in Valentine

Weather is weather dirt is dirt

What have we learned from the stars

We're moody today oozing fear

Dreadlocks in the gulag

A vagina on a chip

Fingernails clinging to a glacier

Did you get your tongue-lashing yet

Saturday morning garden wants to hear

How to harvest every weed you planted

How many bodies you need to feed the soil

And how to account for the radiance

Of these rainy flowers whose colors

Except for the darkness would never glow

Advent Valentine

Like on the old maps

The face of the wind appeared

In the only cloud in the sky

Long strands of hair streaming behind

Gazing up at the full blazing moon

Immaculate as Mary's womb

Sailing above my little house

Slowly that cloud curdled itself

Into the shape of a coiled snake

While slowly the moon escaped

Sweeping its light around it like a cape

Feeling the child inside her kick

The dark around her hard and thick

Rushing Valentine

Isn't it the thing about beauty

That we sense immediately

Some quickening behind it

Or at least the heart does

Shift its resonance so we

Can hear a stillness

That wants to rescue us

Perhaps the only thing that can

And it doesn't matter anymore

If only for a few moments

We stare or glance at it sideways

It wants to save our lives

Rushing toward us or slipping away

Not Only God Is Good Valentine

I think goodness is someone

Who would never intentionally hurt anyone

And who suffers when that happens

Why is that such a high standard

When it seems the least we could ask

Is goodness something they've acquired

After centuries of working with evil

Or a purely natural gift

As with music or mathematics

Or anything we're good at

You must be good for something

I'm constantly telling myself

With so much practicing to do

Scientific Valentine

Conservation renunciation

Resurrection consummation

Earth water air fire

Falling spring wintering summer

Aren't these ideas the eyes

And the ears of the gods

What happens when they move about

What changes what persists

Nothing more spiritual than the weather

So we go out for a long walk

Along the cold rushing river 

Thrilled to find feeding otters

In the swirling chaos current

Nothing gives itself away like water

Synchronized Valentine

The cat leaps to rest on my chest

And purr her little engine of contentment

What does she see in me

That I could be her peace and quiet

For a while against the world

When she is my protector

Against the past when I perhaps

Was still myself a cat

We synchronize our heartbeats

But she races on ahead

As if she planned to skip

The human phase in me

Scanning the future all around us

With her green clairvoyant eyes

First Friday Valentine

I think of you waking up

On those cold mornings in the dark

After you learned the truth

That you had a genius growing

In your belly and lighting

The fire kneeling down

To listen to it speaking

Inside you about a new kind

Of consuming desire a light

That would pour out of the eyes

Revealing every forgotten thing

And I think of you pouring water

For your breakfast of honeyed bread

Still a young girl watching the sun come up

Half-dreading the journey ahead

Advent Valentine

Showering once a week at

Some friends or other's house

Heating with wood and only

A battered outhouse and having

To pump our water every day

And a beautiful baby girl to care for

As if we had wanted to step back

A hundred winters to this

Particular snowfall in the woods

Smug in our snug tiny cottage

Flakes falling through sunlight

As if it had all been planned

Just to look back on and smile