My Love Is Married To My Love Valentine

At certain times in quiet places

In uncertain times and unfamiliar places

Large and small groups gather

To celebrate one of love's victories

Where we are dazzled by the happy couple

Who miraculously have found one another

Out of all the possible people on earth

And always at such times when promises

Are made we and they are surrounded

And embraced by all our angels

A seed of love is planted in the air

By all who are present there

Who see as the holy veil is lifted

That only love is real

The Sound Of Flames Valentine

Too far away to reach

I had to get up and go

Across the room to find

My mind where I left it

Rather crumpled on the couch

I dreamed I saw my sick hibiscus

Covered with flaming blossoms

On Pentecost day but in the morning

They were all snuffed out

No more speaking in tongues

No more burning bush

When there is already in the world

So much listening to do

Before I speak a single word

Next Valentine

When I am filthy rich with days

Because I've given them all away

When my poor nights assemble

Around the fire to warm their hands

Abandoned but some still laughing

When I rest my case

On the beauty of my friends

Then I swear I can see the stars

Are no cemetery the grave

Gives no reliable dying

It was always only the spirit 

Playing around with reality

Always only forward to the next thing

School Days Valentine

What grade of love are you in

The third grade can be very hard

Irregular French verbs and long division

An F often on my grammar tests

But finally I graduated

They gave me a diploma

That said I could love

Anyone I wanted if they

Wanted me even though

It was all still a mystery

How we could love someone

More than ourselves at times

How we could live and die trying

Evolution Is Toward Forgiveness Valentine

All good people are free

It can only be their goodness

That frees them from the tendency

To evil buried in us all

All free people are good

It can only be their freedom

That allows them to see

And choose the better part

But freedom from what goodness for what

Each of us must question on our own

How good then is evil now

How they sometimes intermingle

In great minds and small

And will there be forgiveness for us all

No Match For Memory Valentine

Playing ping-pong with memory

Sometimes she spikes the ball

So I get thrown back

Into a pretzel trying to retrieve

Those last few days in Zurich

Or the feeling when we reach the beach

Until my right hook shows up

And memory's caught off-guard 

By everything I've forgotten

It used to bother me to lose

Not to take it personally

If my life is forfeit

If memory takes it all so seriously

Her only trophy is eternity

Hungry Valentine

Grasshopper season so

Don't freak out too much

If one lights on your chest

It could be just the koan

You've been waiting for all your life

The scarab gem that makes you rich

Look down into its all-seeing eyes

As it explains the last seven years

For both of us have not great

And your trepidation has not

Gone unnoticed by our group-soul

What else can fear be for

But to be faced and cowed

Gentle grasshopper into submission

If you would eat the world

Working With Light Valentine

I have a friend who lives in a place

That gets only a tiny slice of light

Hardly enough to keep a plant

Or two so eventually in winter

When they start to wither

She brings them to the hospital

Of my sunny windowsill

Where I re-pot and trim them back

And we wait while they recuperate

But for some it's just the opposite

And too much light can kill

Her favorite orchid for example

We can only bring to bloom

In the Amazon of my living room

Missed Opportunity Valentine

Our two carts were heading for a crash

In the corner where they keep the juice

Blocking one another's way

Each waiting for the other to reverse

Are you finding what you need

An old woman the size of a child

Unmoving looked up at me and smiled

So many varieties these days to chose

But whatever I bring home to them

They frown they wanted something else

Was she the one who lived in a shoe

Pulling back letting me through

Later at home I wished I'd stopped

To listen to her worried tale

Still Valentine

I've rescued from the garbage

A still-good piece of sausage

And a couple of mustard packets

And saved a perfectly fresh

Half a loaf of bread and

A yellow apple not half-bad

You bring some water from the lake

And breath a little fire into life

And we'll coax a cup of coffee

From these thrown-out grounds

And after we have feasted to the full

For dessert I'll take you to the woods

Where a thousand trillium bloom

If your soul still has room

Lunch Valentine

And then inevitably that agonizing question

What do you want to do for lunch

My always hungry buddha-brother asks

And this after he's already eaten

Half the world crumb-stars fallen

On my newly greening lawn

How about tacos at the Casa Azul

With that sauce that makes you drool

Or share a golden omelet by the pool

And feed the everlasting swan

Or maybe just a coffee and a roll

Thick with butter and gooseberry jam

Where you can tell me I'm a joke

And give my ribs another poke

Basic Valentine

If you can't discern an honest

From a dishonest man

If you can't distinguish

Vileness from a pretty face

Then your religion is in vain

If you see something

Where there is nothing

And nothing where something lives

Then your science is a dead-end

Not the entrance to another world

If you can't find that detail

On which the whole beauty depends

In your own aching heart

What good is your finest art

Listening Valentine

There is a hole in my soul

A chink in the wall of my prison

Where when I'm lost and beaten

I can go to listen

A first a lot of static

And the roar of everyone

In the world talking at once

At least that's how it sounds

Like diving into rushing water

Where silence keeps its secrets

And I am loosened from my bonds

Free as a fish to swim again

To that submerged castle's keep

Where my will to love is found

Feasting Valentine

Your fortune said Sail

And right away I could see it

Close-hauled leaving the harbor

Mine said Bean-sprout

And right away I could feel its

White root needle into the ground

They put too much ginger in the rice

But we eat it anyway

At least the tea remembers

To stay fragrant and lightly

Burn our tongues into the silence

Of long friendship where we

Can finally sit and relish

Nothing and everything left to say

Must Be Valentine

Must be this jiggy wind

That pushes my pen along

A little egotistical wind

Sauntering through the garden

Must be the light in the ink

That crosses out the letters

The white butterfly that flutters

Freely behind the pages

Must be this broken rake

And these visionary flowers

That pry these sounds from me

And pin them into print

Must be these wings uncurling

That carry to me the brink

Calling your name for hours

Dream Wedding Day Valentine

Our laughter is not of this world

It comes from another kingdom

Like swans and some friends

The Mockingbirds my neighbors

Have to fight it out before

They settle down and mate forever

Which in human years

Is just a single summer

I remember the day I vowed

Life is one embarassment

After another if it weren't

For laughter and birds

The Christ would never come

The Buddha unraveling

Would long have flown away

A Handbook For Dreaming Valentine

1. What if our dreams are as determinative

And as full of promises as our waking life

2. What if the dream is our true home

We steal back to faithfully every night

To experience some confusing mystery

Or irrational misadventure that desperately

Seems to be trying to tell us

We are more than we've imagined

3. What if in our waking lives

We spent some time in concentrated

Willful dreaming of our own

Leaving our little selves behind

In an empty room or crowded bus

Now that we've proven we can fly

4. What if the dream can be prepared

Ahead of time so when we get there

We'll have something like a table to receive

What some have called the bread and wine

5. What if we build our own Rosetta stone

Letter by letter dream by dream

And wake to find our Buddha mind

Care Free Valentine

When he said there is no soul no God

I think he meant no separate self

But who did he think was thinking this

When he spoke about nothingness

I think he meant the names of all things

And yet he stood alone in his being

Taking mind as far as it could go

Up to that point for a particular people

Seeing clearly there was as yet

Not a single I on the earth and nothing 

To do but sweep out the stables

Which he did faithfully every night

I can't imagine his blissful surprise

At that first radiance of the light

What's Valentine

The thing that's invaluable to me

About his unusual biography

Is how much he wanted his own life

And to be about the hardest questions

To go straight toward the mystery

While never abandoning laughter

But to strive for something comprehensive

All-inclusive even of illusions

That lesser half of reality

Socrates would have been proud

That he wouldn't settle for anything

But the final answer to God

Even if he didn't find it he knew

It would be simple and beautiful

Happy Birthday Valentine

Don't let the sadness of the world

All based on false assumptions

Persuade you to sabotage yourself

Accept yet another Grecian gift

A box of sticky petals

And a shirt that doesn't fit

It's that kind of slow dancing

The darkness your plus one

Try to be a little grateful

But don't let it take you home

The fly drawn to the stink

The bee drawn to the flower

All this beauty came here before us

And had to be carefully thought through

Even the chance you might acknowledge

It was all for you

Beggar's Valentine

I confess sometimes I like to talk back to God

As if I could tell him what to do or not

Sometimes I like to treat him as an equal

Not because we are but because

He is that understanding that

Compassionate with my impertinence

And not at all defensive taking it for granted

If I complain or interrupt

Something he's about to tell me

I think I already know

We have a beggar's bargain

To cry on one another's shoulder

To share everything together

Even his wisdom for my chagrin

Always A But Valentine

'Call me back call me back'

'Pretty-pretty-pretty'

That morning bird's mocking song

Admonishing the world

But if you squint your eyes

As I am doing now you can see

Venus rising or is she falling

Just above the horizon

After the sun comes up

Of course she's a blur

Love's like that modest

And alluring as a light

Hidden in the light

But how her rays are burning

And how I hope she calls me back

Now Valentine

How many dandelion seeds does it take

To fill the belly of a finch

How many drops of dew to fill my yard

And if I knew the number and the weight

Would it make my heart less hard

Would it cause my heart to break

Into the countless pieces there are

Restore my faith in being small

My mammoth insignificance

At the center of it all

Erase the thick dark line I've drawn

Between myself and the myriad world

And yet the finch must be a finch

And I now an I must worship him

His red as vulnerable as dawn

Swan's Way Valentine

Last night I dreamed I was writing

A libretto for a one-act opera about

The Buddha and a ballerina

Who get trapped in a subway car

Alone in the middle of the night

Where the Buddha in long arias

Pleads with her to teach him to dance

On point in pirouettes and leaps

All the while refusing to move

While the dancer a young countertenor

Exhausted just wants to meditate

On past performances as the swan

Gliding over the peace he radiates

And in the final duet as the music soars

Climbing up she falls asleep in his arms

No Day I Do Not Die Valentine

There's a place on the back of my neck

Where I still feel the axe

There's a part of my legs

That is always warm

In memory of the flames

And marks on my chest

Where the arrows passed

Through several exit wounds

That still itch and must be scratched

And a lot of internal damage

From twice being buried alive

Yet somehow my body my friend

Keeps coming back for more

And somehow my heart survives

Word War Won Valentine

My page as I turn it

Catches some of the blue

Emptiness of the sky

Above its field of words

Like soldiers marching

So their black uniforms

Glisten in the sunlight

My page as I lift it

Flutters its white flag

Laying down its arms

These words my weapons

Letting the blue emptiness win

Dispersing all my armies

Into the speechless wind

To fight another day

Choosing Valentine

Does the dream reflect the day's 

Conscience side risen from the depths

Does the earth reflect the warring heavens

The way the moon reflects the sun

And the sun eclipses the stars

Light and darkness carrying on

Lifting up and settling down

Which we associate with the weather

Though they started out as gods

The great light and the great darkness

Still working behind the scenes

In their manifold distinctions

So we here feel caught

In a perilous conflict

Like children having to chose

Between parents loving them both

Standing Back To See It Valentine

If the stones wake up in the plants

And the plants wake up in the animals

And the animals wake up in us humans

(After a long interlude of birds)

And we humans wake up in the ethers

(After that we lose the thread)

Doesn't this adequately prove

There is no end to waking up

And therefore no end to dreaming

That the stones long to break open

Even if in some hidden flower

That the lily aches to become a tiger

The eagle to occupy a child's

Waking limbs some coming morning

To Dream Or Not To Dream Valentine

I don't dream anymore she said

Too much drama and confusion in heaven

I've taught myself to see only darkness

So I can get some distance and some rest

But don't we have a certain responsibility

To our dreams drawn back every night

Compelled for a third of our lives

To that deathless land of spirits

To experiences we could never have

Awake on earth in our senses

And don't we have a duty at least

To visit the grave of the dream

To find out who we've been

And where we're really going