Intended Valentine

The invention of the material world

Was always a delicate operation

The great had to want to become

Smaller and smaller

Light squeezed into bodies

From the outset a painful

And yet exuberant process

Of dissolving and giving birth 

And frequently they must 

Have to stand back in wonder 

At what they're painting

With their brilliant colors seeing

If they're still on the right track

To the masterpiece they intended 

Inevitable Valentine

If there is only one consciousness

What is this purple flower doing here

This flesh and bones

Don't we have to imagine 

The mind that made it

Dissatisfied with being just air

Deciding to draw real leaves

A material flower

A body to be loved

And cast aside

Time devouring time

Consciousness opening its mouth

So wide it encompasses

Us all in one gulp 

Once Loved Valentine

The thought of you dropped into my head

And immediately a mockingbird

Landed right in front of me

Glanced at me and hurried off

Scratching in the grass then gone

But not before I recognized 

You'd heard me and sent this bird 

To show me one of the things 

You've become living on the other side 

That you are never far away

Even when I forget to think

How once loved there remains

An abiding connection

An immediate reply

Out of a blue sky 

My Teacher's Valentine

Assembling my unruly thoughts

The practical comes first 

I try to focus on the rhythm

Of their confusion like a classroom

Of raucous kids before the teacher

Walks in and they all rush

To take their places

Three Greek words

Are written on the board

But no hands go up

To say what they mean

And the teacher wrapped

Up in some poem is staring

Out the window again 

Gene's Valentine

Even when it's cold out he drives

With all the windows down 

He claims it's his Ukrainian childhood 

He can't get enough fresh air 

A friend of a friend I don't

See him often now or ride

In the van his father left him

Before his mother died

Through the freezing streets 

As much as my imagination wants to

The cold exciting him

To stories of warm bread

Baking every morning

Going down to fetch some 

After Valentine

The rain's last drop

We watched it die

Silvery in the sun

The garden soaked

The leaves gone gold

The summer tucked away

Pulled up by the roots

This little tree

May suffer a shock

Transplanted to a better spot

Our prayers dug in

Around it to survive

Long after we are not

But random breeze

Coaxing its leaves out

Stored Valentine

Startled by the squeaky wings

Of a dove passing overhead

Like an old shed door pried open 

Where I have stored some things

I couldn't quite get rid of

Dare I cross the threshold 

To retrieve that stolen look

Now buried in a stack of books

You gave me see I've kept them

In memory's little hideaway

Among the things I mean to mend

Some day that broken bicycle 

For instance still has life

And those skates I skated by on

As if it would never end 

Just Valentine

I just realized today

The word 'companion'

Comes from 'with bread'

To be where bread

Is made a coffee

With a friend or

Another glass of wine

Just to be together

For a timeless time

Again and again just

To accompany one another

Bread of my bread

Wine of my wine

Proud to be your friend 

All Lives Valentine

Though all lives can be divided

Into pre and post-evolution 

You have to grow ancient

To see how the second half of life

Is completely different

From the first a point

Can be reached of breaking

Away from wanting so much

For yourself and more for

All the others in your life

How can there still be

More unloved people

In the world than loved

Isn't it after all the new

Twenty-first century

And we have all we need 

Dim Recollection Valentine

Come to think

Of it that year

I turned fifty

The purpose of my life

Swerved around after its long

Pilgrimage unconscious

Of time I reached

The age of reason

Finally I seemed ready

For my life to come to me

I cleared a space for it

I tore it down to the bone

We would dance more often

We would never be alone 

Time Is For This Valentine

The spring was cold and stalled

The summer long and dry

The fall was disappointed in us 

So now our hungry hopes all

Come to rest on winter's

Falling endless snow

To count down the days

To the coldest night

When the light flares up again

The slate wiped clean by flakes

The stars called to account

Their glowing falling on the ground

Love creeps in without a sound

And the child comes home again 

Auctioned Valentine

When did the prophets become

Profits when did art 

Not dominate the markets

We can't make the peaches glow

But we can paint them for a show

Can this really be my life

And keep them living in a bowl

Of celadon if you prefer

And keep them hanging on a wall 

Islands of accomplished

Transformations of the light

Each priceless peach

And look a few coins tossed there

On the table an unfinished

Glass of wine come sit

Would Valentine

Ideas where we live

Drift down into practical matters

Through us angels become

Both gardeners and flowers

He who invented the plow

Birthed a soul to pull it

A body to feed a job

To go to a street to wander

Today my angel told me

You too are just an idea

Working itself out on the page

Another ecstatic poem we're writing

If you just get out of the way

The word would come 

Brian's Valentine

His hands could have been

The hands of God coloring in

The first clear lines of light

Seeping into the paper 

But they're just an old man's

Bent and mottled hands

Imitating God's geography 

Pointing out our present location

Where God plays into his fingers

His latest brilliant illustration

Floating there unfolding forms

In the museum of the future

How far we've come so far

How far his hands will go 

It Is I Valentine

It can come like a storm

At the start of your life

Or like that tree that blooms

Once a century then dies

It can appear in a dream

When you see you're dreaming

Wafting between the scenes

Diaphanous presence 

Yet still in a body

In yesterday's clothes

It can rise in the geniuses

All around you these days

If only for a moment

You can peer through the veil 

Edith Lake Wilkinson's Valentine

The sound of rain

From over there 

But here just light

The silent sun

One speaking

One listening

One coming

One going

All day they kept

Changing places

In a kind of dance

First tears and laughter 

And then an enormous calm

Ending in a storm 

Still Valentine

The uselessness to which

I can only aspire

Now that I am blessed

And quietly retired

Can frequently sit down

With my angel going

Over the books staying

In touch with family and friends

Ever-widening family of the dead

Colliding with all the living 

In my grateful spinning head

Clearly demented for the morning

Up and at it still afraid

I'll miss a single day 

My Vocation Valentine

In a past life

I sang so off-key

The abbot told me

Just to mouth the words

I slept in frequently

Got lost in the woods

Came late to Mass

Took too long

Washing the dishes

I wore the habit

But felt a fraud

Watching my religion 

Slowly slipping away 

Until all that remained

Was me and God 

Rowing in the Dark Valentine

Landlocked at night I often imagine

Taking a small boat out

To the middle of a quiet lake

In some forgotten country

To see the blazing stars

In the water all around me

To be bathed in their light

Above and below

Floating and listening

For their further instructions

For my life waiting on the shore

To be restored for an hour or so

To their original harmony

And row back convinced

To my desert home 

Embodied Valentine

The pleasures and pains

The mind takes

To be in a body

The uses it makes

Of the smallest matters

To be proud of it

Or ashamed of it

How it works itself out

Tiring itself to be stronger

When the next day comes

With a will of its own

Everything about it

Servant and lord of the mind

Its project and true religion 

Underneath Valentine

Joy just can't help

Giving itself away

That deep joy in the bones

Underneath sorrow

Imagine them as lovers

Who've come a long way to meet

And have a long way to go

In holding one another

And their first child Pleasure

Rosy-cheeked visiting

Back and forth cold nights

When joy has its arms

Securely around the nakedness

Of all that matters 

Whole Valentine

Eventually the universe

Wants to go on a date with you

And bring the whole world along

An immensity as intimate

As coffee at a table

Where you stumble to say

Something intelligent like

I have long admired you 

Or what are you up to these days

I am coy and supercilious

But he/she/it speaks a music 

I can only listen to enthralled

Wasn't the whole idea

Just this joy 

 

Getting There Valentine

The bumpy road

Of human evolution

On its ascending arc

Is visible in November

Seat-belts fastened 

We are shown

Pictures of dying

Mid-air collisions

With falling leaves

Are we there yet

From the back-seat

Soon soon don't be afraid

Father is wide awake

And Mother is softly humming

One Carry-on Allowed Valentine

Do they recede in the order

In which they came to you

Standing walking speaking

Going over the old equations

The mind at the chalkboard 

Intermittently erasing

What some other part of it  

Immediately replaces

One learns to sit in silence

Two eyes observing the world

And that one eye inside

Peering into the depths

Of your soul's November

That boy at the bus stop

Bag packed waiting

Remembering what he forgot 

 

Questions Huddled in the Cabin Valentine

And what about these stars that loom

So hungrily above our heads 

Who feed upon our deeds

The braille of blinding gods

We've forgotten how to read

Once all it took was the tips

Of our fingers to sail through

The worn pages of our fate

To see the whole picture

Head turned for a glance

Don't speak just shine they say

What amount of shining

Can ever be enough

What hunger ever sated

To keep us all alive 

Cabin in the Woods Valentine

Autumn is to the earth

As memory is to the mind

Memories that precede the mind

The air and trees remember

Their original glory 

In the time before time 

A stillness is achieved 

Before it all just gently

Falls apart words fly off

All the pictures dissolved 

Just the framework left

The skeleton of stars 

And the first flame blooming

In the desert of the dark 

We Have Seen Them Valentine

That advanced spirits on other planets

Might want to put on bodies

And come to check us out

Scientifically of course

And we like amazed barbarians

On the shores of a new America

Outnumbered by their ships

Surrender our golden age

To these immigrants from the stars

Mixing old with new blood

That could be how it evolves

Unless they leave us to our own devices

Sun and moon to carry on

Checking in from time to time 

Longing Valentine

I don't want to celebrate myself

As often as I would

Be the celebrant of you

Source of all love

Wherever you are being

Encountered or refused

Or like Lazarus reborn

In the hearts of children

Innocent or not so innocent 

That they not be slaughtered

Or taken for granted

I long for the earth to come

When the heart will grow up loved 

Some Dreams Valentine

Some dreams are buried

In the earth and only

Flower in the night

When the moon is right

Some dreams drop down

From starry heights

Full of joy and expectation

Some are subway trains 

Rushing past you doze

Alone waiting for another

At an empty station

Some are meeting-places

Pre-birth or after-death 

Where the real plans are laid

In the memory of the future 

Training the Heart To Listen Valentine

I say sit but it wanders off

I lay down a feast of wisdom for it

But it just wants to play and run

Until we tire one another out 

Who walks who we are not sure

The paths taken when the leash

Falls off the fragrances followed 

Through the darkening woods

Primordial joy is its first prey

To search everywhere and come

Home bleeding and humbled

We start out every day

With hugs and kisses

Maybe today's the day 

How Much Valentine

Whatever happened to that needlepoint

Of the four seasons or was it

The four graces you worked on

During your anxious pregnancy

Will it show up at a thrift store

Some hundred years from now

A treasure rediscovered

A beauty for a bargain

But only you and I will know

How much you wanted a horse

Now that we lived in the country

Or how much I enjoyed splitting wood

In the service of that winter's fires

While you were stitching together

The perfect picture of our daughter 

Warming My Feet in the Sun Valentine

One wants to embalm the past

One wants to control the future

If you think of the kinds of forces 

Always working in the soul

Don't you remember how it all

Started out as a continuation

No end because no beginning 

A warm day creeping

Out of a cold night

When night was love

And day was freedom

Before the stars sketched out

Their first visions of us

Before a word was said 

Cindy's Valentine

Isn't it our desire

To win the respect

Of the people around us

Those that inspire us

To some passion

Isn't it our intention

To be appreciated

To be loved by those

Who breath life

Right into our veins

The presence of all

Those people we have been

And have yet to be 

Cheering us on 

Taken Valentine

Today I lost my purple tree

With all its chattering birds

As if they took it with them

When they knew they had to fly

Northward or southward

Leaving me to mourn

In an expanded sky

Thirty years of shade uplifted

Easily by the blazing sun 

The eerie silence and stillness

Of no leaves falling in the yard

The question in the air

Of how and if and when

To start all over again 

All Souls Valentine

Too early for the future

Too late for the past

I join their souls around me

For the festival of death

We who are living are dead for a day

We who are dead are living new lives

Together we celebrate the loss

Of death remember the day 

Death died the door flew open

The flowering graves

Where we can sit together 

And make a meal of silly stories

Of our mysterious lives

Just to join and lift us up again

Opening Valentine

Often through the day I say

'Give me thy peace thy strength

Help to know thy way' words

From a childhood prayer

Or something I made up

In a moment of crisis

I don't remember now

But is it enough to just ask

If I don't open to receive them

If I don't take a moment

To feel them pouring in

Filling and flowing through me 

Strength to call my own

Peace I have never known  

A Blessed Day Valentine

I look back over the day

At all the things I didn't do

They would have been mistakes 

But for the karma of inaction

Some I simply forgot about

Some I decided could wait

What isn't done

Doesn't need to be undone

What did get done

Were the dishes

After a quick lunch

And the pages of a book

That devoured the afternoon

And left me reading in the dark 

Doing what can't be done 

Upstream Valentine

Trying to put one thing

Together with another

One foot in front of the other

Without tripping too much

This goes with that

This will have to wait

I'm thinking of salmon

For supper swimming upstream

Through this rocky night

I'm thinking how you caught me

That day at the shore

Of the rest of my life

How I wanted to be caught

How I wanted nothing more 

Left Behind Valentine

The farmer in me argues

With the doctor in me

This tree will have to go

It's already prone on the ground

Its roots torn up by the storm

Struck down in full bloom

Alive with bees and finches

The farmer wants to let it rest there

Until it loses all its leaves

The doctor orders surgery 

The removal of the heart

Which he says will go on beating

In the space it leaves behind

Where you can sit and weep 

All This Valentine

Sun then rain then sun

Then rain then sun 

A flicker in the distance

A bird of light

Sweeping through the yard

Come then gone

Grayness bringing brilliance

Pursuing one another

Sun crashing down 

Rain slinking back in

Some being struggling in the south

Must be conjuring all this

Giving with one hand

Taking back with the other 

Flaming Valentine

We live for these earnest fall hours

Like waking up in a dream 

We see how things have grown

More joyful and more dour

The last of trees and flowers

The flaming angel returns

To take his garden back

Only revealing at the end

All the gold he was hiding

And you find yourself as if

The only scarecrow left

 Standing in a harrowed field

Deciding not to be dead

But to go for a walk instead 

From The Foothills Valentine

Liberation is all

In the digestion

The mind is metabolic

It chews its food 

Or swallows it whole

Today it learned

A berry grows sweeter

If it hears a recording

Of bees played around it

So many things we all once knew

Are having to be recovered

What the mind has in mind

Grows larger every day

The night merely rounding it off 

Ever Valentine

The future is the only way we know

What was really happening in the past

Even if much of it is lost to us

Even while it was being lived

And we were caught up in our piece of it

We look back on our brothers and sisters

And wonder how they are looking

Across at us to see what

We will make of them

And if their lives left us

Just enough love to go on

And take us with them

Counting on one another

As if they had ever left 

Not Panicking Valentine

Before you noticed it

You locked yourself out of your car

With your phone and keys inside

And meanwhile mine

Wouldn't start on the other

Side of town and I

Had left my phone at home

For a long time it seemed

We couldn't reach one another

Rescue calling out to rescue

Messages not sent or not received 

What was that all about

Both stranded in a helpless place

A dry-run for dying

Or for being born again 

Bottomline Valentine

Where does the vileness come from

Ignorance accounts for a lot of it 

But it must live at the end

Of a long road of grievances

Three sparrows are looking at me

Asking me this question

They come close

Pecking at the ground

But their hunger only

Trusts me so far

They see I am a man

And capable of anything

What reassurance can I offer

They are safe with me 

Don't Cry For Me Arizona Valentine

It's fall that saves

Summer from itself

Headlong summer with

Its overwhelming warmth

A lot got done

But fall sits us down

Inside we start to sink

Pulled back to the earth

By the gravity of our love for it

Even as it abandons us

Taking all its riches with it

Snow becomes beautified tears

And we the fields it falls on  

My Two Teachers Valentine

One says take off your armor

The other says put your armor on

One says you have to do it alone

The other that you're never alone

One tells of one good and two evils

The other speaks of an empty mind

One says you must change your life

The other to just watch it gently

In one a man became a god

In the other a god became a man

From one there was liberation

From the other resurrection

One spoke of now

The other of always 

After Raphael Valentine

The sureness of the hand

That painted these tulips

All of April there

In a row that blue after rain

Washes all their colors out 

Caught in that moment

Their pale complexions

Turn faces into cups 

You can feel the flexing

Of their rubbery leaves 

Your fingers reaching  

I bow to read the name

Of this immortal master

Emma seven years old 

At Last Valentine

The self-renunciation

That lives in the rain

From rivers ascending

Into mountainous clouds 

Roaming the landscape

The insight of the lightening

Exposing the minds

Of impatient gods

The grumbling after

But the rain itself

Brims with forgiveness

Floods of it as if

Without it there will be

No life at all nor love 

My Religion Valentine

To all the many religions of the world

I would presume to add my own 

The church of my weaknesses

The sanctuary of my soul

I propose seven acknowledgements

The refusal of self-loathing 

Both in oneself and others

A love for infants and small things

The loneliness of arguments

Except for those forgiven

The all-pervading presence

Of a guiding wisdom

The only one I trust

To make sense of it all

The other three to come 

Lost Valentine

My dear friend went searching

For her daughter among the homeless

She hadn't thought there could be

So many showing her picture around

She felt ashamed they could be

So kind but none had seen her

That picture her only memory

Held fast and clearly alive

At that particular moment

Are the good swallowed up 

And the rest of us left guilty

Is it only when we have nothing

We can share all we have

The poor we have always with us

Until there are no more poor 

Might Still Become Valentine

What does it take

For any given tree

Or flower to stir

The heart to quiver

Swaying in the breeze

It can't be easy

To be beautiful

See what your beauty made

A handful of seeds

Making a fool of time

Continuation is a feature

And flowers are not gogs

They show us what we were

Once beauty had a hold of us 

Back in the olden days 

Michaelmas Moon Valentine

Who am I this morning

Triangulating my position

With autumn sun's full moon

Retrograde turning direct

In my wobbling orbit

Round you my loves 

In squares and trines

Losing and finding our way 

The will of the dance

If we listen to the music

Fearful and joyful in turns 

While you are over there

And yet are always near 

Across the great abyss 

Night Flight Valentine

How all this weight becomes weightless

The secret finally revealed to us

Longed for from the beginning

Of our first being on the earth

Diaphanous and floating as I

Feel now in my window-seat

Bumping along in the twilight

With these many strangers crammed

Together to get somewhere 

Leaving home or going home

That must be the Mississippi down there

Our history in the cities lighting up

From which for a few hours

We're exempt suspended

Heading toward that rainbow

Of the falling sun tonight 

Come One Valentine

Young Freud was of a dark mind

Turning the inside out

Old Darwin was of a mild mind

Only the outside mattered to him

Forgetting the inside yonder

But there did come one

Of a sounder fuller mind

Only a smidgen listened to

Who took them deeper

Into the marriage 

Of inside and outside

Who showed them how

They are woven together

Into a seamless child 

From the Book of Butterflies Valentine

What I can see of its wings

Stretching out around me

Invisibly but I can feel them 

Opening and closing while it sips

A bit of moisture from the grass

Black on the top side with blue

Iridescent spots along the edge

Bright copper on the other side

I can almost hear it breathing

Calmly lifting them up and down

Only a few moments to spare me

Before it rises and flutters off

Other memories to scatter

Other eyes to astound 

At My Love's House Valentine

We have only two dreams

One while asleep I think

And one while awake

Two sides of a flipped coin

The text on one face

The painting on the next

Which one should I follow

The blue coming up from the southeast

Bringing the wind close behind it

Or the leaves falling at my feet

Someone is holding me tight

Someone I've only just met

At any moment I'll wake up

Only the waking is endless 

Autumnal Valentine

Do the gnomes love the rain

Floating in their flooded houses

Pouring the drops down

To the dreaming roots

Do the undines grow enormous wings

Hanging from the last leaves

Running in and out of one another

When the light flares up

Do the slyphs in silk formations

Slip the clouds right through

The bright mountain passes

Pushing it out of the way

So the salamanders can feast

On the fruit fallen there 

Gazing Valentine

At a certain point in the day

The sun levels its gaze

Right at me through the trees

I try to stay humble 

And not stare back at him

But my eyes are moths

Batting against that blaze

Raying through the leaves 

Of course the sun is a solar god

And must someday consume us

But meanwhile at the horizon

For an hour or so some days

He lets us look right at him

Lowering himself for us humans

As if we could be his equal

Absorbed in his tender gaze 

 

Birthday Valentine

Now I see my life

And death on earth

As just two threads

From some immortal

Personage aloft

Sitting at a loom

Or thumbing a guitar

A loiterer in gardens

Such as I've become down here

I admit I didn't want

To accept it for a long time

I quarreled with the thought

That I could be great or good

I could be everything around me

And might have always been

And still could be myself 

Once Every Epoch Valentine

They say the poles are shifting

And the earth is bound soon

Toward a global disaster

Of Atlantean proportions 

A new perilous way of life

For those who survive

They say we must assemble

All we would take with us 

When we're lifted from the earth

Even now a quiet few who know

Where safety lies are heading out

As before only a remnant 

Carrying in their pockets all the seeds

Needed for a new persistence

Looking Ahead Valentine

Because they circulate

In ceremonial arrivals

We can see what's coming

How they're planning things out

The possibilities the opportunities 

Given certain circumstances

So we can't say we can't read

The future already written there

At least the outline the figures

We will have to fill in 

With some sort of meaning

Each one in its own way 

But just to know they're there

May not be enough anymore

We must go out to meet them 

Once Valentine

In the morning once I've settled

What's for supper I can relax

On the patio for an hour or two

Even as a boy I cooked

For my father when he had

To go in early while the others slept

Eggs and toast

The way he liked it

Though I never understood 

How we two were thrown 

Together under the same roof

So completely unlike one another 

Me a boy cooking in silence

He a man eating in silence

Was about all we had to say 

 

One Bee Left Valentine

What good gardener can plead

He deserves these roses or any flower

Even if he does his part in seeing

They have everything they need

He has not conjured them

But knows someone does

Someone orchestrating all this out here

Into a commotion a blessing

Of unforeseeable petals

(You can breathe their souls) 

A good gardener knows to stand

Even if he's forgotten what it means

In the field when snow is falling 

Praying he'll be here waiting

Patiently when you return 

After Reading The Stars Valentine

To know now

What you didn't know then

At the end when

You find out the story

Wasn't what you expected 

With all its twists and turns

But what use is knowledge

Of the past if you're

Only young to repeat it 

If you get no time

To amend it no room

To say I'm sorry

To break down with gratitude

For all you've known 

Finally Valentine

As it happens

My last gift

Is to grow old

To look back and behold

Out of so many possible lives

I chose this particular one

To have and to hold on to

So many wrong turns

To get to this look-out

But death leads me on to the peak

Of the mountain looming above me

Where all my lives are waiting

The landscape spread out before us

And we can finally have lunch 

Why Valentine

Why do they have to close at night

Is it only the light that holds them open

Have they no will of their own

When darkness invades them

But as it's coming on I watch

Is it for a deeper dreaming

The petals fold into themselves

Almost imperceptibly

Into small white buds

I never really witnessed it before

Like watching a child fall asleep

Sailing out into the darkness

Taken back over the abyss

As all of us must go alone

Is it their willingness to go

I admire or the trust they place

In everything around them 

 

Is it Valentine

I think a great tenderness

Is up against a great coldness

All around us and inside us

Or is it a great longing

Up against a great disappointment

When life crushes us to bits

Or is it a great smallness

Encountering a great greatness

The dragon-fly indistinguishable

From the gleaming purple flower

Or is it a great fear that rises

Up against a great love

So feast on this my love

The devil may win every battle 

But must lose every war 

Like a String Quartet Valentine

Let's give the seasons back

Their original holy names

If we're ever going to understand

What this world is up to

Let's call it Gabriel-time

When the earth holds death

And life together sleeping

Under the ice and snow

And Raphael-time when 

Birthing heals the dark woods

Every flower a medicine

Lifting our eyes to Uriel's eyes

Long staring at the sun

Falling there into Michael's arms

The new-formed music of the earth

Breathing us in and out 

Not I Valentine

Whatever else is going on

At any given moment in time

I know that you are living there

In the caves of my soul

Arranged along the beach

My fear of darkness and of death

My fear itself the monster

Threatening to devour me

Roaring against the roaring waves

That insist I will not make it

If I go alone without

My little stone of love

Leaving myself behind me

For someone braver to come 

Windy Valentine

When the little iron bells

Hanging from the trellis ring

I know the wind has reached

A certain limit to its patience 

And starts to whip its way

Like Jesus in the temple

Through fields and empty places

Building a mammoth wall of dust 

Vesuvius heading right for us

Years later when we've dug

Ourselves out of the debris 

Will we have learned

We ourselves the wind

We ourselves the fury 

Lord of the Elements Valentine

Yes we have these four great gods

We call the seasons working 

But don't you feel a fifth

Mood that moves them all along

When each has made its attempt

To build the earth again

And stands there waiting

For a few expectant days 

Let's call that season Silence

As when one is in the presence

Of death or love or both

Waiting for time to start again 

And then suddenly it's fall

Or spring or whatever that

Fifth god has planned 

In The End Valentine

In the end summer

Holding out as long as it can

Hating goodbyes one morning

Just walks off into the woods

Where its last flames are flowering

Did it over-promise in the sense

That its beauty could save us

Languid lakes and sultry days 

When all along it planned

This dramatic conflagration  

Did it fail to remember 

The gods' shower of stars

Falling at the last minute

Would ripen all its seeds

Tiny but courageous

Full of a further summer 

Further Valentine

I'm still waiting

For these purple flowers

To say something anything

They are so full

Of themselves but not

In any arrogant hurry 

To stand back and

Behold their beauty

They murmur to one another

Their purple thoughts

Each feeling some sorrow

Mirrored in the other

I try to read their lips

I'm sure I will hear them

If I just lean a little

Further in 

Not Night Or Day Valentine

It's late but I can't sleep

Listening to the welcome rain

Drumming and humming on the roof 

So I get up and go outside

The rain has stopped

Everything still and solemn 

The night brighter than it

Should be it's the moon

Filtering through thick clouds

The limbo light of an eclipse

Everything visible but gray

When I walk our and stand

In the middle of the empty street

O moon what should I pray

O rain don't let me sleep 

The Alba Madonna Valentine

The three figures in the painting

Aren't part of the landscape behind them

How did they get there

Perhaps because it was

A beckoning summer's day

They've taken a walk together

Into the flowering fields

Where she's found a place to rest

Her finger tucked in her book

While the two boys run and play

The older one passing a curious stick

To the younger one eager to take it 

While the mother looking on this gift 

What could she do but stare 

Feeling what would come of it 

Sighing In Summer Valentine

Our summer takes centuries

Longer than memory it just

Keeps dreaming on and on

While everything is being lifted

From the earth to what

Does it sacrifice itself

That's the question 

Shaping everything into a seed

More heat than light

All it needs to carry it across

Where do these flames go

When fall blows them out

They go on burning 

In the ground 

Second Valentine

It would be a nice idea

If we could do everything twice

In our lives the first time

To experience it as an actor

And the second time

Having forgotten a lot of it

To get to experience it again 

This time as the director 

Reviewing our body of work 

But memory can be very stubborn

Insisting on what had to be

What was and wasn't done

And so much work left on the script

To bring our protagonist around 

Out There Valentine

I make it a regular practice

To go out there past the moon

Far enough to be overwhelmed

And forced to sit down

On some starry outcropping

And look back on our earth

Clearly just an opal water-drop

Falling from the roof of heaven

After a good rain or flood

Where I can hear the singing

of our grand grand parents

Saturn's deep note calling them

Back to us with giant steps

And baby steps Blind Man's Bluff

Children once again 

The song of the earth 

 

After The Sorm Valentine

A puddle formed a head and neck

A dark figure in a voluminous cape

All that's come of so much bluster

Little breezes licked it clean

But it's left its watermark in my mind

The outline of some desperate soul

Seeping downward into the ground

And made me wonder how many

Make it past the scything moon

Only to get cut down sent back 

To take a part in storms and floods 

But look the sun wants you back

I feel you rising in crystal air

May you find some freedom there 

Epithalamium Valentine

A blue thread holds us together 

The way the sky the clouds

Thinking keeps no distance

I say your names out loud

And feel again our deep connection 

The way summer melts into fall

The sense of coming home

The old one gone the new

Just coming on

New Moon Valentine

What is that chirping all about

In the burning tree this morning

A few notes thrown together

The beginnings of a song

That tries but can't quite

Get off the ground 

It is the Verdin they say one

Of the world's smallest birds

Who never leaves the desert

Wings so trim and quick

You barely catch them passing

Back and forth this asterisk

Above all it surveys its song

There at the bottom of the page 

Beginning Valentine

You call and send me

A picture of your new

Shortened hair-cut so

Golden and brownish

Loose and free framing

Your smiling face so

I remember when

Your mother looked 

Like you when we met

Don't you think love

Begins in beauty the way

Beauty is just the beginning

The first classes in a long course

Learning to live and love 

More Purple Flowers Valentine

If I were to bring you inside

You would droop and fade

But out in the blazing sun

You stand up full and proud

What is the story

That brought you here

Was it after long suffering

You finally found

A place to place your glory

In the ground of this

My waste gone green

What do you want from me

I see in you a flourishing

O so slowly coming round 

Aside Valentine

My eager task today

Is not to be buried

Alive under all 

My teeming mind

Has gathered 

You know how

The world wants 

To gobble us up

How thoughts can

Multiply and then

Divide us all that

I want to put aside

And let your words

Your face love

Be enough 

Assumption Valentine

What are you trying

To say my soul

I keep interrupting

Just as you part

Your lips sometimes

A word slips out

But no wait I must

Ask my question first

Whatever you're going to tell me 

I want you to know

It changes nothing between us

I will always forgive you

And beg for yours

And then you blurt out one word

O Christ just let me speak 

Returning Valentine

Slowly this summer out-burns itself

Flames drawn up from the earth

As high up as far away

Until everything seems to shine

Everything starts to ascend

Climbing the ladders of flames

The flames pulling up the ladders

Behind us so we can't escape 

But just then the Pleiades

We call them with no sense

Of their true magnificence

Seal off the sins of summer

Rain returning us to this world

We love and love to hate 

  

What Good Valentine

What do you need right now

If you're present to it 

The thoughts line up for inspection

Restless jostling one another

But what good are thoughts

If there's no one here

To focus and bareback

Ride them out to the pastures

Of what it feels like

To be occupied by nothing

But this separate moment

Of unaccountable stillness

The sense of some great being 

Passing though you

As you glance on by 

Today Valentine

Today they finally dug up

And learned to read

In a dead language

An ancient hymn to Marduk

Who through many deftnesses

Comes down to us as George

Or Michael with his dragon-sword 

The god of gardens and rivers

Despite his warrior heart 

Who back there in Babylon

Spent his youth in freedom

Until we locked him up

In paintings and in sculpture

Made an idol of his duty

Someone else will excavate

And yet just now I saw him

Freely walking up the street 

 

O To Be Purple Valentine

Even at 110 degrees

These fleshy flowers bloom

A little regular irrigation

Induces these purple cups

To defy the passionate sun

With shades of won-through joy

A sober joy a tempered joy

Sturdy green leaves turned 

Into pale and deeper purple

After all that's happened 

How can they be merely

Creatures of our earth

Preferring beauty to pleasure

Taking comfort in the stars 

The Point Valentine

Suppose we have only

The middle chapters 

From which to devise

What must have happened

From what we remember

To get here in this story

But how is it possible

To miss the point entirely

To have it walk right past us

When it's the point we're after 

One hand tied behind our backs

The mystery all around us

The sun always struggling

To set ourselves free 

This World Valentine

Into my waking mind

Endlessly flowing

Quiet explosions

Of memories about

All of this world

Feelings for it

And the one to come

As much as I can 

Take it in between breaths

It's so huge and dangly

Refusing to be swallowed whole

But broken into tiny morsels

Bits and pieces I know

I will eat it all

And still want more 

Afterwards Valentine

The young man asks

The old man how

Did we end up here

In the desert of our dreams

Only after you've traveled

Great distances

Through many cities and faces

Is it possible to tell

Which direction you

Were heading he says 

A response that leaves

The young man gaping

Couldn't you tell I would

Betray you and then beg

For your forgiveness 

Didn't you promise me

You would never leave 

Here sit beside me old man

I've warmed a place for you

Let me cool your fevered brow 

Not Unlike Valentine

There is a deep loneliness

In the desperate heat of summer

Not unlike the quiet loneliness

Buried under the winter's snow

An unavoidable terrible loneliness

That swoops in like a tiny bird

The only one left behind

Just as suddenly gone

I was standing in the garden

Being cooked I was laying

In the snow being stripped

My soul a river under ice

My body these brown leaves

It only takes a wing to rattle 

 

A General Theory of Spirituality Valentine

Things squared equal beings

Whose bodies we can see

But whose souls are visible

Only in their intentions

That there exist only beings

Of stunning variety everywhere

Who are always either fighting

Or supporting one another

And there are those who don't

Want us to see this life

Is a moral war fought

With material means

Who try to dazzle us with numbers

And temporary relative signs

We fighters for freedom

We beginners in love 

Come Morning Valentine

The world is done in oils

On a black background

But the sky is a watercolor

Mostly in blues and whites 

Pigments make for places

That settle in and harden 

Then get slowly painted over 

But the air is pure fantasy

A great artist's ongoing dream

Of sailing flowers and castle faces

Where everything looks like something else

How could the same hand

Paint them both and then 

Tear them into pieces every night

Only to start again come morning 

 

Our Bodies Valentine

Our bodies are like the working classes

To our wealthy ingrate souls

Who take up ownership

In our castle brains

Thinking how to forestall

The next assault

While the heart is left 

To fend for itself

What is the heart anyway

Still a mirage remembered

In a dream of our desire

Or still the most underrated force

Without which there can be

No body and no soul 

New Moon Valentine

The Sisyphean moon

Carries the Herculean sun

Up over the mountain of every day

One keeping time in mind

One holding space in its arms

The great teacher of the stars

Strolling through the earth 

Praising and lamenting

Without judgment or regret

Its brilliant scribe

Hurrying behind absorbing

And then forgetting all he taught

But gratefully he has a gift

For humor called tomorrow

Same old moon he makes it new 

Going Somewhere Valentine

From the inside to the outside

Or from the outside to the inside 

What difference where you look 

Like those two parallel trains

You can't tell which is slowly

Moving ahead which being passed

The outside seems to hold

Itself together but struggling

To whisper its secrets to us

While the inside seems divided

For and against itself not quite

Ready to take up responsibility

For all these things it sees

While slowly the trains

Are leaving the station

Your spirit-face in the window

You lift your hand to wave 

Reservation for Three Valentine

At the breakfast table

My angel and my double

Pour me another coffee

Pass me a piece of toast

One wants to have music

While we eat in silence

The other wants to hear the news

That the earth is still here

Strange how Bach pairs up

With flood reports and fires

Teaching them how to sing

I've learned to block them both

One keeps saying let me finish

The other don't interrupt

I think I'll let them fight it out

Pass me another piece of toast 

Just A Question Valentine

Can you look inside the soul

Of another person

With your mind's eye

If they stand still

Or you get close enough to go

Past the lines in their face

To where they originate

What struggles they've endured

Can you identify a friend 

Or a foe a brother or a sister

After so many years of not

Really entering one another

Not really penetrating

What's going on inside 

Days Of '25 Valentine

Longueurs of the lantana

Livid with candle flames

If the temperature doesn't get them

Our over-watering will 

But the Vinca surprised us

Blooming against the heat

We could barely tolerate 

And on their own some kind

Of purple flower spread

Over the places we never got to

We were given a strip of land 

And told to make a garden not a grave

But summer blasted through our yard

And not a flower we could save 

Openings In Heaven Valentine

After he died and was thoroughly vetted 

He was promoted to an intern position

In the great hall of hereditary records 

A thriving beehive of a place 

Moving at the speed of light

For the first several months

He could only follow at a distance

The great physicians on their rounds

As they stitched new lineages

Of brains and hearts together

How they would pause sometimes

Like careful jewelers and go back

Inserting a diamond here and there

Often at the most unlikely places

But eventually he'd age out

And be given a quiet room

Where he could harvest

All he'd learned of joy and pain

And how a body might be born

And sign the scrip of his return 

Flying Elsie and Ginger Beauty Valentine

You were just learning

How to smile and wiggle

Our garden's newest rose

Still wet with heaven's dew

A ginger fresh from some

Celestial fire when up rose

(Years later they will tell you this)

As if to show you how

Your plucky great grandma

Who never learned to swim 

Gliding over the hungry waves

In one of those contraptions

They had back then

But you just rolled over in your cot 

As if it was nothing you couldn't top 

At Anchor Valentine

Gray isn't much of a color

Just a shadow or layering

Of washed-out white

Thinning everything today

Thick clouds and a wind

That dissipates the heat

So let's go for a drive

Along heaven's coast

And welcome the new-born waves

There are coves where light

Is just making a landing

Stars in the rolling sand

And far out in the gray

The ship of the sun is waiting 

Morning Prayer Valentine

Thank you Father

For another beautiful day

No one can take it from us

Help me to make of it

Something worthy of your love

In all I do and say

Help me wash my eternal dishes

And straighten my temporary bed

Even as your light like water

Circles over my head

Let it not overwhelm me

Let me swim out to that island

Where all your plans are made

And bring back something hopeful

For all my friends Amen 

Don't Be Afraid To Look Valentine

Who are we talking to

When we talk to ourselves

It's clear there's someone there

Listening to everything we say

Reflecting on our reflections

The way a mirror listens

Confirming and disputing

Our existence so it's hard

To know which advice to take

Or which admonition to obey

But don't be afraid to look

At who we've become so far

And suffer a little scolding

While we stand and pull

Ourselves together again