Scottish Symphony Valentine

I dinna ken 

On a drooping leaf

How the reddish wren

Can sit in the rain

Pecking and singing

So brae and bonnie

I dinna ken

How the rain can be

So plenty not to drown

Her rippling song completely

I dinna ken 

I've forgotten her Gaelic

Song she rains

From joy and panic

Rained-Out Easter Valentine

After the rain eclipsed the dawn

Which took most of the morning

The sky lay down in the usual puddles

Where we could watch the slow

Unraveling of the clouds

And the pale grail of the sun

Appear as a brightening moon

In the depths of an inch of rain

Before the rain returned

Rain and light together

Playing Bach all afternoon

It got cold and we wanted a fire

But we just let our bodies warm the room

While the light grew dark again

The Quietest Night On Earth Valentine

All that was left to us

Was the star of his body

A scintilla of light

Soundlessly falling

Into the darkness of the earth

Growing brighter as it fell

His first thought always

Of the lost trapped in the dream

Of death the great delusion's

Prison door flung open

All night he lingered

Breaking bread with them

As his star grew stronger

Bursting into a morning

Even distant galaxies could feel

A New Kind of Lightening Valentine

The prophecies of memories

When we first saw you coming

Turning looking back through centuries

Catching glimpses of your fires

And now to suddenly arrive

At the core of all suffering

And love's overcoming all

The obstacles still shocks our senses

We still don't understand

How to grasp a god

This most intimate thing

Taking your body down

Washing and wrapping it

Hardly the weight of a child

Broken Bread Valentine

When we all took our places

In that borrowed sunlit room

The Kyrios was smiling

As he scanned our faces

Such a buoyant serious smile

I remember now when

His startling quiet eyes

Met mine I did try

To take him all in

When he passed the cup to me

Though I wanted to refuse at first

Please pass me by I mouthed

But he just waited smiling

Till I buckled to his will

And went running from that room

From Her Hands Valentine

In a yellow apron for the day

Madonna does her shopping

She gets up well before the sun

Building hot coals in the oven

She's making bread this morning

As she has for centuries for the feast

She lets me sit in her warm kitchen

Rolling the dough telling me stories

Of the amazing things he got up to

As a boy their long serious talks

Past bed-time him staggering

Around in the morning dark

A piece of bread in his mouth

Gathering his books for school

In Hot Pursuit Valentine

You are the missing person in my life

Were you kidnapped and killed

Buried in some moonlit field

Or simply walk away of your own will

No one seems to know

Yet you often left me clues

Of where you might be found

Usually in the next town

But when I'd get there

You'd have moved on

I can only say I'm following you

Except when I'm distracted

By the silliness of the thought

Of always trying to find you

When you are already here

And have been all along

Eclipse Moon Day Valentine

Today the bright palms of victory

Get trodden in the dirt

The morning after begins

With yesterday's news

The body-count that keeps breaking

In and out of consciousness

I like to think I have a phone for a mind

And locomotive eyes searching

For where he spent the night

A god does not want praise

So much as loyalty and courage

But still in his last days

Someone must bring him food

He must get some rest somewhere

Quietly gather all his strength

Getting ready to be ravaged

Do You Ever Valentine

Do you sometimes travel

In a muddled meditation

Down to the musty basement

Where the old ledgers are kept

The paper turning into papyrus

The history of love written

In numbers on the backs of checks

To burn or settle into compost

The smell of it brings me

Back to my senses fast

The garbage in the gut of things

We pick through suddenly

Realizing we may have

Thrown away the best

On My Own I Bestowed Valentine

Doris and I Beau and I

Pam and I Paul and I

Bernie and I Pat and I

Scary Stranger and I

(I've forgotten your name)

Judy and I Dee and I

And Jess who woke me up

And John and Tony and I

Daniel and I David and I

A few pictures I can pull

Out of my pocket in heaven

Asking everyone I meet

Have you seen them

They're the reasons I am here

Thankful Valentine

I picture myself swimming

Far out on the ocean

Alongside an ocean liner

There are crowds along the decks

A few cheering me on

But most just watching

And I'm aware of whales

And sharks singing in the depths

Thankfully it's a sunny morning

Having spent the night

Sleeping on the waves

Floating on my back

Music drifting over me

From that sinking ship

Beautiful Soul's Valentine

A small town is like a little school

Where the great arguments begin

The first separations and betrayals

The making and unmaking of friends

But when I heard you'd passed 

I remembered feeling meeting you

You were not from here

Your huge golden hair an aura

Around your Persephone face

I mean the way beauty can shock

And wake you up

Something beyond knowledge

Happened between us and now

In your passing still does

Among School Children Valentine

That boy said my hair looks stupid

Her five year old face stares up at me

So hurt she's willing to share this

Even with an eighty year old stranger 

Come to visit her busy classroom

How does that make you feel I ask

But she just goes on staring

At such a stupid question

Sometimes boys your age

I try to explain are mean

To girls they are afraid of

And secretly want to be

Friends with but if you ask me

I can tell you your hair looks beautiful

My name is Peter what's yours

Whispered Valentine

Like the climates of different countries

The shifting moods of the world-I

All going on at once night and day

What kind of mind is this

Hurrying us all along

How much of it

Is it even conscious of itself

This child genius of the planets

I try to hold it in my little mind

When it laughs or cries out

My feeble fingers reach

For its giant hand I whisper

For whatever it's worth

I'm here I'm here

When Valentine

I'm looking forward to keeping

A promise I made long ago

When I get done working hard

Trying to avoid it

Perhaps it was presumptious

A little grandiose of me

Caught up in the moment

So enthralled by your presence

I didn't wreigh what I was saying

Something lost I recognized 

In you that I was craving

But maybe I was selfish

And too hasty and didn't see

How much your love would save me

The Art Of Gardening Valentine

Can you tell the dead-heads

From the still unopened buds

Guess the grasses from the weeds

Or feel what the crocus needs

Or search the clammy woods

For where the blood-root feeds

On what the naked maples bleed

Just before they drop their seeds

Out of all the catalogues you've read

Can you assemble in your head

A flood of color in a bed

A summer ascending from the dead

Will you be satisfied to find

The last of the asters burning red

Bought Valentine

Came the day I had to decide

Whether to live in a valley

Or on a higher hill to take

Instruction from a creek

Or look out over the world

I settled for a woods

On a rocky slope with a

Working well and a shack

Two rows of giant spruce

That formed a kind of cathedral

Where I still worship now years later

Those first days I built a fire

And watched the first snow fall

Something Else Valentine

Sorry isn't quite enough

To bring back the spring

Something else must intervene

In the heart's underground

That stirs the stones to think

They might possibly be flowers

That someday it could happen

And the dizzy flowers start

To dream that they can fly

Right up out of the darkness

Of the putrid silly heart

So spring can ravage them

With a whole new sorrow 

And a whole new joy

Not Far Valentine

Every morning around ten o'clock

I hear a sound I can't identify

From not so far down my street

An almost human screeching

Briefly three times

The wail of a child at first

And then metal scraping metal

Loud and piercing

Like a mechanical bird

Or locked-up baby monster

The song of its rattling chains

But why three times only

And why just when the sunny street

Reaches its most peaceful point

Must that beast let loose its cry

Driven Into Spring Valentine

Given the wrong directions

I found myself lost in the desert

On a road going nowhere

Run out of time to make it

Back to my appointment

So I just kept driving alone

On this twisting hillside road

The full sun leading me on

It had rained the day before

And the pure air was lending the desert

A luster that lit it from within

Great stretches where the original

And exiled trees survive alone

The loveliness and agonies of spring

Spring Planting Valentine

In a barren patch of ground

I threw some new seeds down

And placed four narrow sticks

In the sign of a star upon it

And poured some water

Salvaged from the rain

And watched it settle

Sparkling in the sun

Into the darkness of the soil

And having made my grave

I knelt and prayed

This new moon would unfold

From memories I've saved

A rising of green and gold

Free Will Valentine

I learned to use God early

For my own purposes

While he learned

To use me for his late

He introduced me

To his friends and gave

Me fairy tales to eat

Lost legends that put

Me to sleep and harsh

Blows to wake me up

He taught me to be

Objective about my fate

While I taught him to wait

I was coming but might be late

Loved Valentine

He knew four loves in his life

Two women and two men

But when it came to picking sides

Neither team would have him

And there were others along the way

Who fell in love with him

And would have given him their all

But he just didn't feel the same

Though he tried to settle down

Letting it all go on too long

Is it better to be loved or love

Without regret or compromise

Love's body and love's soul

Each struggling for control

Texting With The Dead Valentine

I spend the morning

Texting with the dead

Sending photos back and forth

Mostly to my mother whose birthday

Was yesterday and whose last

Necessary job was greeting

The bereaved in a funeral parlor

Though she was secretly terrified

Of corpses but tells me now not to worry

About dying it's been happening 

All along just another birthday

'I keep getting younger every day'

Signing off with a slew of emojis

And a link to falling stars

Hazy Valentine

Tumbleweed buried a town in the east

And we laughed uproariously at the sight

Imagining a match thrown

And the ensuing conflagration

Elsewhere a million acres

Had been burning for weeks

And in a city in the desert

A huge explosion hurled

Shrapnel killing a boy

Which seemed paltry compared

To whole countries on fire

Elsewhere for the time being

Gathering on the outskirts

The sirens' keening not so remote

We can't smell the smoke

Unwrapping Valentine

The gift of time at last

Arrives in a little box

I keep trying to open

But it keeps getting bigger

Until I find myself inside it

Working through the wrappings

The births and deaths of light

Emanating from the center

I think I will find there

My still-beating heart

Encrusted with time

When I get to the bottom

Of so many things 

And behold you waiting all along

 

Meeting Valentine

Some thoughts don't immigrate well

They get trapped at the border

Of consciousness refused entry

They spend their time filling out

Forms and living in tents

Showing up in nightmares

Consciousness can be a bully

When it comes to things of fear

It doesn't want to hear

From its hidden half

Like the elder brother a little enraged

When the prodigal appeared

All the lost thoughts gathering

And his father running to meet him

Desert Valentine

What can I know about myself

If taken to a rocky limit

The wide open world

Spread out before me

As if it were mine alone

Or that I could leap

And find deeper than gravity

Lies tension in the wings

I can feel sprouting

From my flailing arms

Out of memories and dreams

Conjure the other side of things

Neither bread nor stone

Both stone and bread

The Thrones Valentine

Time is much different on the moon

When earth shines back to it

The light collected from the stars

Two weeks of darkness two of day

Swaying on the sea of space

But who hasn't noticed

There's so much more darkness

Than light in the known

Picture of things the moon

The only hole in the heavens

Light pouring from light

Which we convert to lives

Doled out in nights and days

Gods of twilight gods of dawn

Nowhere Valentine

Just beyond Longing

Take the northern road

Where it all starts to look

Like Norway in the spring

Or Zurich in the fall 

All the seasons compacted

Into a few singular days

The whole point of your coming

Into the world summarized

At a roadside table the bride

And bridegroom have arrived

There is a mountain over there

And wine is being poured

And we have nowhere else to be