Graduation Valentine

So many classes left to take

One lifetime will not suffice

Yes I'm all for relaxing summers

But I also want some ice

In my glass in my veins

To get me through the rainy winters

If I promise to tell you the secret

Of your single life do you promise

To tell someone you meet

Into whom you can plunge

And swim and feel refreshed

With whom there can be no secrets

Just so many lifetimes to get back

Conception after conception

To love's unbroken promise

Family Valentine

When I look back on my ancestry

I find them all scrambling for life

After persevering for five centuries

In the same small ancient town

Finally two or three got fed up

Enough to push off for freedom

In a crowded open boat

Often it was my mothers

Who were prepared to risk it all

But of course some stayed behind

The son or daughter who couldn't

Abandon their ailing father

Certain to inherit the farm

Pending his favorite's return

Content Valentine

The black shadow of a dove

Flashes over the narrow strip

Of sky that's mind to love

My pale blue horizon

A thin wash of white

Subduing that deeper blue

Like a ceiling getting ready

For a fresco while I wait

For some Michelangelo to appear

To paint the feet of saints

At least that's all I'll get to see

From my narrow stretch of sky

Resting content to picture it there

Another masterpiece flying by

Memorial Valentine

All you insipid old men

Who harvest the young

With your business deals 

And malicious wars

Exploiting their native bravery

And naive thirst for glory

Don't think we don't remember you

Strolling among their pretty graves

Because you too were once young

With the same zest to make a mark

While older men in secret circles

Were plotting how to take you in

Arranging their barbwire fences

But how did it all begin

Stony Valentine

Way out (is there a way out)

To the coastal wilderness and the sea

Went the furious hermit with his wife

(Who was even busier than he)

To restore to us Prometheus

Rolling the stones of poetry

Uphill and down into a sturdy home

(No way but they got a piano in)

And then he built a curious tower

To his love where she could sit

And sew the waves together

Or in silence eat their frugal supper

Until he would start to curse the stones

Rushing off to fetch another

Apolitical Valentine

Politics is how we deal

With being loved too much

Or too little or even less

Politics is how we deal

With someone else's grief

Recognizing it as our own

But wanting to turn away

Who is ever loved just enough

To know how to live a simple life

Without feeling like a coward

Politics is how we deal

With intimacy and being

Touched and being seen

And what we make of love

Dramatic Valentine

A pure white butterfly

Fluttered out on to the stage

During the final act

After the lovers died

The whole audience gasped

At its nonchalance and grace

As if to belie any tragedy here

With a continuing motif

For the play after the play

Where they would assuredly

Go on to other lovers

Which the audience approved

With thunderous applause

While the butterfly took her bows

Surrounded Valentine

Another full moon tried to slip by me

But I caught it in my purple-

Flowering tree full of bees all day

Humming along scenting the air

But now at night a factory locked up

Bright moon peering into its windows

Turning all its blossoms black

I'd just slipped out

For a late night look

When that light accosted me

The people of the moon

Surrounding and whispering to me

And then we all stood still

While her majesty rode past

Salad Days Valentine

My friend who's afraid of dirt 

Wants to become a gardener

But when she was asked to cut

Off the dead calendula heads 

So more flowers would come

She had to force herself to do it

And just sat and wept feeling 

They must be suffering

But lo and behold this spring

Two strange plants emerged

In her barren rocky yard

She finally noticed from her window

And when she went out to look

She found them growing red tomatoes

Rejoicing all she had to do

Was remember to water them

As any responsible gardener knew

Time Is A Kind Of Mind Valentine

If I wasn't upset

Things move so slowly

I would be upset

They move too quickly

Time rounding in a clock

That stares back blankly

At the little I get done

I try to rest content

That the important things

Are all in better hands

Like the sun coming up tomorrow

While we stand idly by

Bringing all the time we need

To fail and to succeed

Self-Knowledge Is A Terrible Thing Valentine

In the war of all of me

Against the rest of me

I play the helpless victim 

And the pyrrhic victor

Sometimes both at once

I had no idea I could be

So cold and cruel

I stand in awe of the horror

I continue to inflict

And bear the blows raining down

From my own words and fists

But how to call a truce

How much suffering must be

To learn to hold and kiss

Only Valentine

More like moons we seem

With the sun reflecting in our faces

Carrying the darkness on our backs

Cycling through our phases

With mathematical precision

More like plants we seem

Plunging into the earth

Shackled to some season

Struggling to give birth

More like light we seem

Curious forms the sun has made

Passing in and out of our eyes

How not rise to the conclusion

That only the sun survives

In And Outside The Dream Valentine

In one dream we hugged

And it felt completely real

In another dream we sat

In the backseat of an old car

But it felt like I was filming us

You wore an orange shirt and jeans

And I kept staring at you

Smiling whenever you looked up

To say something I don't remember

And then memory yelled 'Cut!'

And we dissolved back

To our respective realities

You longing for the earth

Me longing for heaven

Far Off Valentine

We seeds of God

Thrown down on the earth

Just as we are and left

To make the most

Of our specific placement

Each little ego's prodding taproot

And ascending stem

Just trying to cajole a few leaves

Into some unimaginable flower

Far off in the summer

Just to be plucked

And carried home to adorn

Some young god's hair

Or sit upon her table

Cloudless At Last Valentine

I suppose the clouds themselves create

The consciousness to see them

Enormous or in bits and pieces

Here in the desert where they

Hardly ever come in summer

Just a blue ocean of sky

Becalmed and endless

With barely a wave or worry

Until everything burns down

To a few essential ideas

Working their way over

Stone-dry river beds

Refusing clouds or rain

For Pentecostal flames

Do You Live For Life Or For Yourself Valentine

Some mornings now alone

The little black beetle

Of death comes running

Up out of the grass

Dancing around on the pavement

As if late for some appointment

But wait it's not a beetle

It's a mayfly green translucent

Waiting for its wings to dry

Like something out of a fairy-tale

Some evenings now

It flutters up and settles

On my knee as if to say

Come with me to eternity

Blood On Everything Valentine

When I sliced my thumb

Running it under the water

Blood filled the sky

Like the northern lights

I went out to watch

Rosy wings flashing

I trembled at the spurious

Connection but the blood

Mingling with the water

Kept washing over the sky

I just stood there wondering

What could stem the flow

Of blood running in the streets

But heaven's reflected glow

Bodiless Valentine

Just as you predicted

We all felt abandoned

Amazed but saddened

After you had gone

Some of us took to our beds

It was a sickness not to see you

Some of us took a boat out

And just let it float

Sleepless speechless

The moon crossing the water

Some of us even claimed

To have seen you on the street

But looking back it was someone else

Didn't we all give you up for lost

Appearance and delusion

Until you kept your promise

Give Me A Minute Valentine

A distant siren

And a nearby cooing dove

A breeze along the skin

And now and then

A crystal silence

Everything pausing in place

As if some divinity had come

Unseen in some flower's face

So royal seems its purple

Its leaves so quick and fresh

Could it really be that simple

For a minute or an hour

No darkness can unravel

What this god has blessed

Enormous Valentine

Tossed about as we are

By our anxious searching souls

Swinging between holding

Ourselves together and letting

It all go trying not to look

Too far down into the abyss

We find a quiet bench to rest

And catch our breath in the shade

Of the first tree we planted here

So enormous now it blends

All the seasons into one

Some blossoms falling on us

Some branches heavy with snow

Where I love you is all we know

Choir Practice Valentine

Maybe collectively we've only come

So far but individually

Some soar above

Their time and place

Their destiny and race

Admitted to a larger conversation

Where epoch sings to epoch

Working out the words

To accompany the hymn

They're continually humming

And now and then

A soloist steps forth

To intone the note

That says the sun is coming

Just Asking Valentine

Tell me again

Passing light

Why you can't remain

For more than a minute

Hovering over each thing

Then hurrying on elated

Letting the wind undo you

We all know you have a lover

You're always rushing to meet

We hear you quarreling making up

But why do you keep

Going back to him

He must be God Almighty

In the darkness of your soul

It Happens Valentine

If the future goes by

As quickly as the past

Where will we be left

Still making a living in some city

Of our imagination still looking

Forward to seeing you for supper

Or maybe that doesn't happen anymore

We eat alone with our phones

Only get together in our sleep

But perhaps we'll get past all that

So the future can settle down

With a whole new attitude

About itself a new set of stars

Unhurried calm and bright

For Rent Valentine

Sometimes I think of my mind

As a studio apartment

In an old house or tall building

In the middle of nowhere

Which turns out to be very

Accommodating very peaceful

Until the relatives arrive

The other parts of me some

Who love me some who think

I am a joke but I just

Turn the music up

Until all of us are dancing

And the neighbors even louder

Are pounding on the walls

Question For Mary Valentine

 When the moon returns

To its eclipse position

Is it a different moon

Because of that experience

Or do such cosmic events

Leave it inert unmoved

Merely a mirror hiding

What's behind it as surely

As what it shows

I think the moon progresses

Like any lost soul

Returning and returning

Picking up the pieces

And letting them all go

Crossing Valentine

It turns out you don't

Have to know where

You're going to get there

But it helps to have a clue

A detailed plan so you know

What probably won't be happening

Mostly we sleep on the train

Or on the back of a cart

If you must go back centuries

That travel agent lied to us

A beautiful lie but nothing

Compared to the stars on the sea

On the return crossing

We couldn't wait to get home

Class Trip Valentine

On my way to earth

I have a happy hazy memory

Of a week spent on the moon

I remember a lot of music

We never heard before

A stream drifting us past

Pictures of our life to come

And then falling asleep by a fire

With the moon beneath us

And the stars one by one

Lifting us into flight

It would take us centuries to wake

As babies just to learn to speak

I love you one more time

Still Next To Me Valentine

For this morning's choral drama

The sun brought the grass to attention

It had rained so it all sparkled

Only the tuba was missing

So afterwards we could go

From song to song in our heads

Like a monkey through trees

Each carrying a little rhythm

Of joy stitched into our skins

For when the music stops

And the singing is heard

Only from a great distance

In the sound of your breath

Still there next to me