Breakfast Valentine for Dave

A chocolate do-nut

With candy sprinkles

The scientists assemble

The first pictures

Of a black hole

Exposed by what light

Surrounds it a cup

Of steaming coffee

To temper the sweetness

Of discovery another bite

Of the invisible darkness

The spiraling heart of the universe

A hole we peer through

In search of our own

Sasparilla Valentine

Hot day for the sasparilla

But that's not their name

These purple corollas

Blooming among the gold

Lantana umbels lovely

Word umbel umbel umbel 

An inhalation exhaled

A fragrance on the breath

Beautiful day to be

Good for nothing

But to sit and stare at them

To breath in and out

To take it all in

And give it all up

Real Light Valentine

The darkness our eyes can see

Is not the real darkness

Which only the I can see

Hidden in the light of the heart

Only the I can behold

Its own darkness

As its own creation

Out of its own suffering

But how can we endure it

Take this brilliant afternoon

The sound of a siren blazing through

Stand there comfortless alone

But feel sure the real light

Which is love can reach you here

That the darkness is only delusion

I Have A Picture Of Her Skiing Valentine

The oldest of seven

Her mother died

When she was fourteen

Of consumption leaving her

In that position her father

Almost always gone

Working on the trains

Until her Grandma came 

And freed her to flee the nest 

Insistent on her own life

The only one who did see

How much larger the world could be

Sailing for parts unknown

Until she had me

Ars Poetica Valentine, for Daniel

In my dreams last night

An important line was spoken

I repeated it several times

Trying to imprint it

On whatever memory 

I could salvage there

Drifting from scene to scene

Hoping to bring it back

With me when I woke up

But it was all of three hours later

Before I remembered that dream

Hearing and speaking those words

That might have saved my life

If I had only written them down

Inherited Valentine

I wonder if the passions of ancient Rome 

And Greece two thousand years later

Are showing up in our blazing summers

Climate is such a spiritual thing

Even the sun and rain have to bend

To the will of time to soften the blow

Even the mountains greedy for their share

Of visionary rainbows moving a few inches

Away by the moon every year

It doesn't take a change of scenery

To tell we've been pushed

Over a line in the sand at last

Where's there's no going back

Where the future must solve the past

Sometimes Valentine

Sometimes I push my thoughts upstream

Against the restless current of the past

Over the tiring rocks and rapids 

In search of the quiet pools

Where I can crawl up on the sand

And catch my breath

Sometimes I think this is the shorter way

To the source up there 

In memory's mountains

Not downward to the shore that cannot be

But back up to the beginning now

Where it passes into becoming

Bubbling up out of the earth

Melting heaven's snow

Archival Valentine

All morning long I spent

Tracking down a word

That set a steady pace through

Stacks of books and notes

Now scattered around the room

Only to find what it means

In the present tense defies

What it meant in the past

Along the way I visited the coast

Distracted as only the ocean can

By its pictures of endless drift 

Where I came upon the story

Of a glass boat far out at sea

Carrying my word to me

The Cauldron Of Ceridwen Valentine

I can't imagine why

The red finch mates and stays

Through these hot desert days

And these cold winter nights

Where I find them year-round

Settling for a life in my little yard

Migration doesn't seem to be

An option nor the climate

Any obstacle to the songs

They've planned I think

They've learned to live apart

From life and death

And come and go

To show me how

Prompter's Valentine

Shakespeare makes us believe his lives

Have played all the parts in his plays

Someone who has brought to ripeness

All his ghostly former lives

And put them shaking on the stage 

A terrible sweetness in their mouths

Refusing to side with history or

Tragedy or comedy completely

I love that he retired in the end

To resume the usual family life

Someone's husband quarreling in bed

Or bringing flowers to his son's grave

While out here in the throes of the world

His many lives sustain us still

Some Afternoons Valentine

Fierce fervent cloud-beings

Rear up above these always-summer islands

Brilliant white caryatids

Carrying large dark lakes

Looming above the beaches

So the bay begins to sparkle

With a million fallen stars

In the twilight they create

Scattering brief showers

We go out to stand and dance in

Releasing our bodies from our souls

Now we have the chance to  

Feel their hands upon us

The shaping fingers of the gods

Slapping Valentine

She slapped my face hard

Introducing a whole new element

Into the conversation

I was twelve and had

Just told her she was

Not a good mother mistreating

My friend her weeping son

I admit she listened first

While I read her the riot act

I almost quoted scripture but that

Would have presumed too much

We paused briefly eye to eye

But I never saw it coming

When I quickly slapped her back

All Over Valentine

Can anything flare in the future

That was not seeded in the past

When I look back at the field I've plowed

I see the furrows in my forehead

And what I thought weeds gone wild

The fall has turned them all to gold

It turns out time is the abyss

Out of which is cut our own

Little space to work things out in

To ruin and redeem ourselves

Like any good arable land

And then lie idle for many years

We behold them all over the world

Empty grassy fields

Pregnant with us and yearning

Pilgrim's Valentine

No things but from ideas of the things

No brain but the thinking that sustains it

No feeling that doesn't prove we're dreaming

No will that isn't his

No island that doesn't see us coming

No sea-air we haven't breathed before

So why did we feel abandoned

When the ferry dropped us on the shore

We'd heard there was still a forest

With its original birds and trees

A thousand different climates

In valleys unexplored 

A lake of burning stars

Where the gods could be implored

Enough Valentine

If my task is just

To make use of

Everything you tell me

Dear language of the stars

You'll have to speak

A little louder and

Slower and try

Not to ramble on about

Your beautiful constructions

Come closer to my ear

So your lips are touching

And I can feel your breath

Just whisper his name

That will be enough

'White And Greens In Blue' Valentine

I love you the way

Goethe loved Rubens

For his acute memories of nature

'in the minutest particulars'

I love you the way a fake painting

Cannot be told from its masterpiece

'in the minutest particulars'

I love you the way your greens

Nestle up against the blue

Like Delos clutching its ruins

You know the shore I mean

I love you the way

You wake me from my dreams

To your minutest particulars

And call it dawn

Breaking Free Valentine

When I first noticed

Taking my sweet time

That it's only physical things

That are constantly disappearing

While something else remains

That was always there before them

That was the strange day 

The world flipped over for me

I became the world

The world being me

Of course it doesn't last

That's part of the point

Just the outline fretwork

Of my next invention

Common Sense Valentine #2

When we abandon common sense

Perceptions of the world

We argue about abstractions

To get around the obvious elephant

I think it's where we're stuck

At this stage of human development

Overthinking everything to the point

Where everything is threatened

But only common sense

Can show us what is nonsense

Because it doesn't come you'll

Notice only from the head

But from the belly and the heart

Common Sense Valentine

What makes sense common

Is that it's a shared

Understanding of how

To keep things simple

Without which our piety

Turns cruel stops listening

And our inherent arrogance

Takes ownership of your needs

With a benevolent smile

Common sense says

I am not better than you

With all its implications

While the world keeps shouting

Yes I am

Tonight's Valentine

When I get home tonight

Would you please remind me

To trim my eyebrows they're

Starting to look like mustaches

From the nineteenth century

How much hair should be on a face

Depends on how much you want to hide

But these two parentheses

Above my eyes have formed

A bridge of thorny brambles

Endangering my vision of you

When I get home tonight

Would you please remind me

To hold you tight