Keeping Fit Valentine

What do you call that exercise

Where you lift your body up and down

While prone on the ground 

That's what the lizard does

The guardian of the stony wall

Shrunken dragon after all

These post-Jurassic days

He skitters and stands very still

He's lost his wings and his tail

His little red tongue happy for bugs

He snatches out of the air

Imagine him in his downy nest

Curled up dreaming of larger days

When he'll return to eat the world

Birds Of These Days Valentine

Is it possible in this city

She has a nest nearby

That perpendicular bird

Every morning coming to seize

Grasshoppers for her breakfast 

Flying some back for her brood

And because you planted honeysuckle

There's a faithful hummingbird's

Sudden coming sudden going 

And in the distance a dove

With her constant mourning 

And late last night is it true

Under the moon growing full

While the earth was very still 

I swear I heard an owl

Ask where I was and who

They Call It Glory Valentine

When we first practice to conceive

What a web of wonder we unweave

The mind admits one angel in 

Two demons try to denigrate

Love takes its start in sin

But the question stays unsatisfied

Which of three beauties will win

The beauty of power

The beauty of bliss

Or that thing of an hour

If left to one I chose

The opening and the closing

Of this blue morning flower

Almost too much to take in

Take This Wing Valentine

What is the story

Of the fire ants

Who send explorers

Sniffing through the grass

And when one finds the gold

It gallops back to tell the rest 

And then two lines are formed

Betraying some intelligence

One going one returning

And passing one another

They pause to embrace

A greeting and farewell 

Yes brother we have found the source

Take this wing to our queen

I'm going back for more

Another Valentine

Not unsympathetic

To anything poetic

The flicker shrieks

In the leafing yard 

A scolding and 

A frantic warning

Pay attention

Don't say a word

Do you comprehend a thing

Do you experience anything 

Dry your eyes old man

Stand up straight

Don't ask me why

The gods have sent you

Yet another spring

This One Day Valentine

In the morning I like to sit

Reviewing yesterday's demands 

Looking for something I might have missed

Something important I need to save

Before it all becomes a blur 

Treasures locked up in the tomb

Of my mind like the Egyptians did 

Necessaries for an afterlife

Already here in the dawning light

That sweeps it all away

But there is supper to prepare

And all I have is this one day

And hopefully tonight

Some love to share

Leftover Valentine

All are fed but more

Is left and gathered up

Than there was there

In the beginning

Leftover love that longs

For just one more day

One more supper together

To say what we wanted to say

Before it all gets gathered up

And your body is packed away

Disappeared to shards in a jar 

Are we not tactless to complain

While all around us now

So much love remains

Fleeting Valentine

A little stain of darkness

Streaks across the grass
The shadow of a hummingbird

Following fast

Somewhere above

Too bright to see

The bird itself

Must catch the sun

To cast this other

On the ground

They must hover there

Alone apart or seek

Some reconciliation

In some open flower

Where Valentine

The woman in the next room

Is screaming and screaming 

Non-stop for hours and hours

How is this humanly possible

Terror screams rage screams

Some so high-pitched they

Pass over into silence

For a few blessed seconds

Flooding back even louder

More heartrending

More earth-shattering

Screams for help that never comes

Screams refusing it when it does

Where is the medicine for her grief

My sorrow that it isn't me

The doctor that can heal us both

The More Valentine

The more the light increases

The more the darkness deepens 

It rocks us back and forth

Until what's held so tightly

In the earth loosens into leaves

Some argument between them

Gets settled slowly into flowers

About to break their branches

Something given is received

But it hardly lasts a week

This eternal spring

Unconquerable spring

Re-imaging everything

In the passing of an hour

Proven Valentine

I love the way dead friends

Come back for a visit in dreams

Picking up where we left off

As if death never happened

Or at least didn't change between us 

Anything that mattered

And yet we're not the same

Some of us have put on weight

Some of us grown thin as light 

Last night lovely Judy long gone

Out of the blue appeared 

Scrolling back through her life

She came to me to prove

Love is no memory

It goes on living still

And kissed me on the cheek

Windy Valentine

Here in the desert instead of snow

A cooling calm descends

More like sleep than death

The tall saguaros climbing Calvaries

Stop to catch their breath

Until the Feast of Gabriel blows

The winds out of the west

And rain like mercy flows

Into the veins of stones

And out of a darkened sky

A few days of glory bloom 

But only if in your heart

Now broken battered bruised

You have left it room 

To give you back the sun

Taken Valentine

It takes a soaring eagle

To grasp a hare's life

It takes the scent

Of lilacs to be swallowed

It takes a winter to reduce 

Whole libraries to a few

Empty endless pages

Daring to be written on

But why did it take so long

Centuries I waited for me

To rest my head on your arm

If death is short and love

Is long then let it take 

All the spring it needs 

For us to wake

They Know Valentine

A  cargo of middle-aged mothers

And a sleepy old man in the front seat

Traveling with the destinies

Of their children in their hearts

From a meeting of schools and teachers

Reminiscing when they were girls

Running to catch the phone

Gabbing with girlfriends for hours 

Laughing about the tricks they played

Each with a saga to tell

In the struggle to grow up

And the comfort of being friends 

They know how much the world depends

On childhood and a child

The wonder in their faces

Their warm embraces and first words

Maybe Valentine

Condensing down as we all have been

From star to star over millennia

Will these bodies not become stones 

To one another in the end

Mountains to be clambered over

Will we block our way

Moving forward as a whole

Or they say not at all

But we are all still children

Holding on to our mother's hand

Who doesn't see the car coming 

Or maybe the light of the stars

We once were is just arriving

So we can quickly get across

Hurried by angels as in the pictures

People of the Heart Valentine (for Lee)

To me it all says

Be! Be!

But who made being

Forms transform 

Only the road stays road

And the task of finding

A few companions to walk with

Even if only for short distances

And a fleeting conversation

Thank God time is a fiction

His emissaries impose on us

From which we can now and then

Escape into that eternal moment

That still comes and goes

In us and between us

Afterwards Valentine

It was still spring

When he returned 

Exuberant spring

Overwhelming him

For days he sat in wonderment

Getting as far as a stump

In the yard to watch

A raft of stars descend

As if to carry him away

Until he had achieved

A stillness next to death

Just to feel again and again

Its overcoming the passing through

Apparent in every leaf and stem

The Seventh Day Valentine

There's something so child-like

About this curious old man

Still willing to follow birds

To find his own way

Sneaking around the castle's

Dark halls and locked doors

Into all the forbidden places

This holder of secrets now 

Who must be imprisoned

At the gates of heaven 

How he loved the music

The dancing and the sailing

This tired little boy

Who just wants to go home

The Sixth Day Valentine

An egg becomes a bird

Bursting forth cooked and burnt

Whose ashes deposit two

Tiny figures that fed on blood

Start to grow into king and queen

It all goes back to memory

The first magic show

A house of mirrors where

The sun burns out the sun 

The sadness of metaphors

That we can only approximate 

What's really going on in us

We sleep on mysteries 

Until the calling of the dawn

The Fifth Day Valentine

The first formulations of the idea

Of a physical-magical cosmos

Love took for its thesis

It would share its existence

Out to the smallest things

In a continuing evanescence

It would walk the world 

Storing its misgivings

In beautiful all bodies

And fall asleep in the earth

Dying into its creations

Over and over again

Giving birth to a child

While remaining a virgin

The Fourth Day Valentine

Here we enter another world

Half-sensual half-sublime

Christ pulls back his veil

Revealing still more lives

Seven little ships carrying coffins 

Sail out on a dark lake

A transformation underway

After which one hopes

Nothing will be the same

Some power still lingers

Don't you feel it in the pictures

He has painted and left behind

Real water in this fountain

Poured from a living mind

The Third Day Valentine

 Before there can be a wedding

There must be a weighing of our love 

How much of it is self-desire

And how much the real fire

How much a feather can tip the scales 

To prove the phony and the liar

The stupid who play the gods for fools

And find yourself among them

Before there can be a wedding

There must be romance the unraveling 

Of unsolvable riddles

In someone else's face 

A cup must be passed

The taste of tears and laughter

The Second Day Valentine

Happy the day that brings the sun

And moon together in the same sky

Dangling from a distant star

And happy the man loudly singing 

Through the woods of another spring

Keeping to the path sometimes disappearing

Pursuing a raven and a dove

Questioned does he qualify

At several stops along the way

And only at the last second

Swept through the slamming door

Of the castle of his dreams

Only to be shackled as before

Content to be left to sleep

Below in a drafty hall

Having found a friend

The First Day Valentine

He doesn't say how many in the end

Were drawn up from that dark pit

But he was the first

To thank his rescuers 

Bloodied head and feet

Having survived the nightmare

He remembers the angel

Almost shattering him this morning

The invitation stirring in his pocket 

An old man stumbling on his way

Knowing exactly where he's going

With no idea how to get there

And we left in this dark pit

Remember him and trust 

He will remember us

Wind's Valentine

The wind is up today

Air impelled by angels

Giving themselves away

Showing us how it's done

Warmly and yet with little

Flecks of ice that sting the face 

Hurrying us on in the sun

So it almost seems to carry us

A step or two and lift

Our feet up off the ground

Fearlessly and joyfully

Prodding us along

Wind that is the will

Weaving us our fate

Neither too early 

Nor it seems too late

Getting Through Valentine

 Coming to the great wall

At the limits of my knowing

I walked and walked and walked

Until I found a little crack

And took to hammering every day

A hole I could crawl through

That finally brought me to

The endless fields of feeling

The phantom of the visible world

Once passed there's no return

Leading to another massive wall

I knew to be my impenetrable will

With its tall turrets and flapping flags

And me banging on its only door

Coming Valentine

A straight line divides my yard

Half in shadow half in sun

But the light is slowly pushing back

The darkness against the wall

So I can see each blade of grass

And all kinds of budding weeds 

Step over that threshold into the light

Until the whole space is taken in

Almost every shadow erased

And for a few moments

I too can stand in the sun

Illuminated and overcome

As if some flowering could come

Some leaves sprout along my limbs

Gone Valentine

She lost her wig in the wind

It lifted right off her head

Like a possessed black bird

Half-flying half-stumbling

Through the paying gate

Out onto the busy freeway

Dodging cars and flying feet 

Only to get by a wall arrested

And taken to the pound

To sit in a dusty cage 

And dream of that lonely head

Where she had made a home

Now all its thoughts have flown

Over There Valentine

The lines get broken

As if the wind intervened

Tearing them from the mouth

So the sounds get spoken

In a certain rhythmic way

Sieved through the body

At best as a shiver

Of something already known

Some joy returning from the future

Out of a long line of traffic

You find a place to pull over

Sheltered from the wind

So you can actually hear

Some bird's song in the words

Against that howling over there

Late Valentine

Always trying to catch up

I leave myself behind

Is he following or leading

Such a little blur

Just ahead in the crowd

Or cloud-like stalking me

But we've promised to meet up

If I remember how to get there

At that long-gone Chinese place 

We hurried to after work

Where you were always waiting

And I was always late

I'm sure I'll get there this time

I have marked the date

Just When Valentine

When nothing comes back from him

And your goodness goes unnoticed

And even your favors are rejected

And the light of his love grows dim

In the impending darkness

Of your fear of losing him

And even the simple events of the day

Start to tear you limb from limb

And you cannot eat or sleep or pray

Just when you're certain it was all a lie

Something you conjured on a whim

He knocks on your door and asks 

Where heart have you been hiding

How long will you keep me waiting

Greatest Valentine

As in that fading reproduction

Where the Christ sits in the middle

Not at the head of the table

Flanked on either side

By two interesting evils

Calmly as you can

When something horrible

Is about to happen

Where monks took their meals 

And now tourists travel

To see it flake away

As in that face at the center

Where such forgiveness lingers

There must have been the greatest sin

 

Spring Valentine

The earth falls out of the water

The water falls out of the air

The air falls out of the warmth 

The warmth falls out of the sky

The sky falls out of the darkness

Churning at the center

All this so the leftover moon

Chalice-like can be filled

With the salvaged light of the sun

Its glow reduced for human eyes

To look at fully in the face

As much of ourselves we can manage

Filling and being poured out

On this earth which is softly rising

Returning Valentine

When you return to your ancestral land

Jet-lagged and slightly disembodied

Whether just to visit or to stay

Whether having made it or not

In some other country far away

You find that nothing's changed

Or else nothing is the same 

Your cousins and your aunts

Take you in and feed you

Or no one of your name is left

In the dusty village of your birth

You visit the cave of a thousand buddhas

Or climb the old hill above the sea

Taking pictures of the earth

As it was and is and will be

Rain At Last Valentine

After the rain and the naked tree

And everything green left glittering

A puddle formed at my feet I swear

Of a phoenix bird in flight

Half of it sinking half of it lifting

A rainbow bubble for an eye 

Protruding and then burst

Half in victory half in defeat

And suddenly a glance of sun 

Ran like flames across its face

And took it up in a single stroke

Or was it the ground that drew it down

Leaving a little gleam of peace

This Morning's Valentine

I watched a bright tiny cloud

Grow into a curling embryo

Where nothing was before

It doubled in size and spread 

The gray shadow of a heart

Forming at its central part 

Then the whole birthing thing

Melted back into its womb of blue

Until another brightening came

Different but it did the same

Building a body then disappearing

Out of the south a slow parade
Another and another rose to fade

Like children searching for a home

For Now Valentine

There is a trellis upright in my yard

And its grid of shadow on the ground 

And a tiny vine deciding

Whether and how to climb it

Or just crawl around the grass

But for now it's early spring

So its two leaves have some time

To linger in the cloudy sunlight

And watch its shadow grow and die

The mystery is how it landed

Right at that incisive point

Where two ladders meet 

Where flight seems possible

Some day some night

Just Starting Valentine

Dear beetles ants and worms

Of the world just starting

To wake up in the dark earth 

Only to find the stems and birds

Waiting for them still they come 

The shrunken animals of the grass

Who knew the zodiac could fall

So far or the cosmos cling

To a single mustard flower 

And what else rises up

Out of the dying earth

To claim for itself

This ever-returning sun

If not you our only one

Making His Descent Valentine

They say he will come in the clouds

Or might have already arrived

So every morning I wait to see

Where his feet are touching down

Like the impression fish leave

In water there then gone

Or one of his legs of light

Plunges through a boggy cloud

And he might waver there 

For a few visible moments

I think he's waiting also

For the last possible sunrise

Though the suspense is killing me

I'm still counting on every cloud

Praise Valentine

Praise me Lord as I do you

Who knows what we can do

When we embrace and joke

About your great plans for us

You with your gardens and cities

Where we can stroll together

And I can finally hear

What were you thinking

When the idea of me in all this

Slid into your head and heart

I mean you must have had

Better things to do and yet

You turned you looked at me

I loved you from the start

If One Valentine

If one blooming fruit tree

Can disclose an angel's brain 

Then 15-20 springing in your yard

Must bring an archangel down

Someone who can orchestrate

How the light is bent 

Along the infant branches 

How the flesh is formed

Out of that heavenly fragrance 

Just enough so you don't

Float away but leaves you

Dreaming in the grass

For some hours stranded

Between life and death

Mindless Valentine

How many minds have I 

As many as there are

But mostly it comes down to two

And a third like a child 

Running along holding on

To his hurrying parent's hands

Who frequently lose their minds 

Shouting and quarreling over him

Refusing to take sides

But the mind being a prime

Number travels on and won't

Be stopped by dull infinity

It can only come to rest at last

On some human savior's breast

Now Valentine

Every drama is divided

Between the performance up front

And what's going on backstage

The years of preparation it takes

To insert a few moments of mercy

And your mind will never 

Be the same dull thing

You start to feel each day

As the culmination of events 

That happened long ago

And each night with its onset

Of stars clamoring to be born

What waits to wake you

Now you know it's there

Some Dove's Valentine

Some dove in deep distress

Keeps cooing and cooing

Or it could be a love song

Is there really any difference 

And then faintly in the distance

I hear the same four notes

Come back uncertain

If an echo or another dove

Compelled to repeat the same

Love-moan the same old groan 

First of pleasure then of pain

Four notes and then a pause

The same sounds wording

Beating out a groping heart

In love and in distress

Roses For His Birthday Valentine

From the rear of the class

I want to thank you truly

For coming back dear teacher

To give us another chance

To think the way a singer thinks

And learn to read and dance

To sow ourselves as stones

In the warm earth of Christ

And spring up leaves in his sun

But all of that is still to come

Indeed has already happened

And we are always just catching up

Losing our way every dreaming night

If it weren't for your faithful light

Struggling Valentine

This colorful world seems everything

Yet nothing if not limiting

It hems us in and shuts us off

From knowing anything for real

This world becomes a giant wall

Under the guise of rolling hills 

We settle in with the literal stars

Forgetting the darkness

That makes them shine

Those stars that cling

To the darkness those faces

That haven't forgotten us

Struggling to break through

Though we have forgotten them 

Yard Bird's Valentine

I know my lizards

The way my lizards know me

Fleetingly and confidentially

Flames that dart about the yard

I see my plants

The way my plants see me

Objectively and enviously

I think of my tree

The way my tree thinks of me

Deciduously and aspiringly 

Little ego of my garden

We suffer any winging thing 

To come unto us

Mockingly and mysteriously

And we together sing

Thin Valentine

I think we only really see ourselves

When we stand in the thin line

Of dawn just before the sun

Has risen in the half-darkness

Before the brightness overwhelms us

And the darkness goes underground

That thin line that divides

Our bodies into two warring sides

Where we can feel a few moments

Of equilibrium and peace

Neither light nor darkness

Neither arrival nor departure

Creatures of this at once

With some of other world

 

As Yet Untitled Valentine

A painter has to be

A bit of a chemist

A musician has to be

A bit of a mathematician

A dancer has to be

A bit of both 

Time spent planning

Your next life how else

In galleries and concert halls

Waltzing between the statues

With your love at the feet

Of greatness learn to be a poet

Of your life perennial apprentice

To the masters of love and light

The Way Valentine

The way the English

Love their gardens  

I love you the way

At least in films

The Russians loved

Their troikas dashing

Through the snow

I love you the way

You deal with space

And time and me

So nonchalantly

Careful of the hours

Counting  and not counting

On mere eternity

Exactly Everywhere Valentine

A large white seed-head

Atop a leafless stem

A periscope risen from the dead

A single dandelion stood

Confronting me when I came out

So exact and self-possessed 

It held my eye in judgment

Of my envy at its imminent

Dispersal just you wait 

I will be everywhere

This dying you see dear friend

Is just a dress rehearsal

For a hundred thousand flowers

Out Shopping Valentine

Wandering back over yesterday

I did not get the weeding done

I did not find the rose

Nothing in the house I drove

To the store unsure of what

I wanted but it was there

I found two genuine smiles 

The first from a three year old

While his mother stared at the flowers 

Our smiles went back and forth

A radiance that fed me

And later checking out

An old woman's eyes brightened

As we passed to a smile

Still blooming today

A freshness I have stored away

Weeding Valentine

I suspect today will find me

Kneeling before flowers

Whispering to the gnomes

Weeding the narrow border

Some come up easily as thoughts

Barely holding on to reason

While others insist on feeling

And putting up a fight

Releasing with a sudden jerk

So I take a tumble laughing

But I will not be stopped

I'm searching for a briar rose

I planted years ago

Blooming hidden here

In all this thorny bramble

Waking Valentine

Let's start with something simple

Something physical as a kiss

Let's lie here for a second

While our spirits reassemble

Let's quickly speak our dreams

Before we can't remember

What it felt like to be vapor

Wafting on the breeze

Then rise and dress ourselves 

In tattered gaudy souls

Like birds returning to their nests

Who knows how far they've flown

To call these bodies home

Together and alone

Only Valentine

Every morning I wake to pray

Thank you Father for this

Beautiful day you've given me

Help me to make of it

Something worthy of your love 

In all I do and say

And though I know he's occupied

With more important cosmic things

Hurrying through the darkness

Continually unfolding beings

I know he hears me

I feel him here inside

Has he not trusted me

With his only child

Siesta Valentine

Come three in the afternoon

I start to swoon a little

And must crawl back into bed

For my rendezvous with the dead 

Who prefer the secrecy of dreams

Where they can let themselves be seen

Alive in their neighboring sphere

Under the cover of sleep

Where a parallel life persists

In mysterious pictures and moods

Of something truer realer

Struggling to break through

To this harder thicker side

Where dreams must live and die

Again Valentine

Wondrous terrible love

Pulling us apart and putting us together

The gods have given us to play with

Like children with fire

Why put us in an orchard

And not pick the fruit 

It took courage to defy them

But love came first

The juice on the lips

Our overriding desire the flesh

Of being human

So now the only way those gods

Who loved and then abandoned us

Can get back into this world

Is if we could learn to love them again

Voices Valentine

Whoever it is who's using me

These eyes to see the world

These legs to stand and walk on

Who slips in at the last minute

To keep me breathing 

Feeding me words

In endless conversation

You soundless voice I feel

Working your way through me

No not one but several

Ranks and ranks of beings

Helping me question me

If I be sane and worthy

To be of use to them

Holding On Valentine

I don't want to be the vessel

I want to be the drink

And from the other side of me

I don't want to be the drink

I want to be the drinker

It takes both hands to lift 

The cup between the two

To be both bread and breaker

Word-made and word-maker

In my inmost being

Which is how I think of you 

Between the poseur and the faker

One nascent word that's true

Looking Up Valentine

A curious flock of small V-shaped

Clouds heading north this morning 

Like check-marks risen from the list

Of things yesterday accomplished 

With four white porpoises pursuing

And then a gray whale looming near

A fanfare of thunder and lightening

From a distant war but no rain comes

Then nothing but a surfaceless sea 

Of blue endless into evening

Surely the gods must be planning

Their next move having dragged us 

Into this suspension of disbelief

This wondrous terrible world

At The Foot Of The Tree Valentine

Comes the day the first greenish leaf

Appears on my old pomegranate tree

Tiny as an infant's fingernail 

Emerging from a grave

My gnarled tree still hung 

With a few dead fruit

The dried blood of wounds

Cracked open by their seeds

Comes the second day

A second leaf deepens
That reddish glow

Destined for the flowers

And for all I know right now

A third day must be coming

Conjured Valentine

Like someone rushing past the windows

The rain ran on as brief as that

But just enough to shine the air

And deepen all the colors

Green greener and red sharper 

A rain dissolving to a mist

Itself a kind of spirit flower

Unfolding into nothingness

No rainbow but a rainbow's

Evanescent power to stir
The world into a glowing blur

Of fiery water earthy air

As if to conjure another world

Too beautiful to bear

What Is Romanticism Valentine

Is it a living science of the heart

Is it Persephone is it not

Experience of the hidden part

A longing for heaven or hell

Is it not how you remember her

Growing up between the living

And the dead often mistaken

For a statue or a slave 

Of passion and of beauty

Is it not the theory of Mary 

Imagine if she'd not been there

She and her best friend Magdalene

Rushing to the empty tomb 

Never Valentine

By the way dear Gayle

Your coconut cake was quite a treat

A sweet secular communion

I ate half that very night

And saved the rest for breakfast

But it was your words I savored 

Drawn from long researches

I felt the toil of your love

That somehow you were summing up

Your life what it had come to

That castle in the woods

That hut where a man lay dying

You saw and said it how this world

Would never be the same

Sure Valentine

Bring me some cogent words

About destiny my friends

On the invisible side of things

And suddenly like a flame

A hummingbird appears

And stares at me and a small

Scroll unravels from its beck

Bearing a single word

Dissolving on the breeze

Gone before I've time to grasp

It but it puts me on my knees 

To praise the sure

Fulfillment of our days

Rescued Valentine

What are you up to today

Devils and angels of the world

I rescued a golden grasshopper

Drowning in a water bowl

Pouring it out on the open grass

And sat with it while the sun

Dried its lovely back and legs

Asking if in kind return

It would teach me how to leap

Right up out of myself

For all I'm worth

Even if only a moment's flight

Like it in the airy light

Not to drown here on the earth

Pieces Valentine

Broken like a beautiful jar

Seem yesterday and the day before

It slipped from my fingers

Now in pieces on the floor

Just as I was loading it with water

And seven tall sunflowers

Trying to amaze you 

Now on hands and knees

Gathering up the pieces

More and more of them missing

As I paste them back together

I hardly can remember

The faces of those flowers

Until only you are left

Just as amazing as before

Until Valentine

There is a large part of me

Seriously addicted to me

And a smaller part in recovery

Still going to meetings in my mind

There is a part of me I never see

Until I become a stranger to me

And look back critically

On my creation of me

And see it will take a shove

Or a jolt must come

To get over myself

Incrementally

Little by little until

All littleness is gone 

And the world and I are one

As I've been telling me

At Some Frontier Valentine

My warm hand grasps my cold hand

The greeting of my separate halves

Who stand and stare at one another

Best of strangers best of friends

Like two diplomats conjoined

Across a barbed-wire fence

Wondering if this rain will pass

Chatting about their children

One estranged one a dancer

Each sees the other in himself

But what brave cities sent them out

To cobble yet another peace

A weak heart on the one side

And a broken liver on the other

Ars Poetica Valentine

I think it is the classicist in me

That is secretly romantic

I feel it is the materialist in me

That used to be a mystic

I will to feel my thinking

A pebble on imagination's grave

That something may revive

Of our old first words

Mamma Papa you and me

I am nostalgic for tomorrow

Where everything is yet to be

And look back eagerly

On all my waiting still to come

Just to have you all again

Daily Valentine

I take my fury for a walk

Leashed and muzzled tight

Dragging me through the sunny

Streets struggling to keep up

Over to the park and pond

Where I can drown it

Under the swan's invisible feet

It is something she must eat

Snake-like with her yellow beak

How else develop her serenity

If not she feeds on scorn

Rage and pride reborn

More radiant when she flies

Over everything that dies

Gathered Valentine

Whenever two are gathered

And yet he and I make two

A circle small enough

To contain all others

 

Whenever we call their names

And the names we have forgotten

That used to be ours

And still I call his name

 

You whoever I used to be

Whenever he is in me

And you the others are in me

Because of him

 

And evil stands at the door

Knocking and we have let it in

To sit and speak with him

While we can only listen in

Some Real Conspiracies Valentine

On the noble gates of heaven

Open all night and all day

Some have hung No Trespassing signs

Some who want to convince us

There's nothing there because

They can't or will not see it

And even if there could be some Valhalla

We'll discover it when we're dead

Slamming the gates shut

Some who want to shackle knowledge

Of the light to power and violence

Exchange love for a vegetable life

(Is there a more abused word

Than love a more uncertain activity)

Some who would like to persuade us

This battle is not being fought

On other than wholly spiritual grounds

Enough Valentine

I woke to the single cry

Of a bird being snatched by a cat

Just outside my window

I could feel its hunger

My stomach growling

And the helplessness of that

Bird as I lay dreaming

And when I rose and walked

Out into the perfect weather

Still hungry still helpless

A strange calm I found in the yard

The light silently breathing me

And there a beautiful feather lay

Just enough to go on

Daring Valentine

I see they've built

A floating ladder

Up to where the mountain

Touches the cloudy sky

An easier way to get there

If you don't mind hanging

From a thread your feet

And hands clutching

Almost nothing but the light

Dangling between life

And death for a better

View of the abyss

We all must finally

Dare to cross

Fallen Spring Valentine

Out sailing toward the Flowering Quince

The good ship Daniel late from Bristol

Wrecked upon the Plymouth rocks

Of his own yard on his

Own hands and knees

Was it to see the mystery

Of the blood flowing pondering it

Like a child his pain 

Suppliant to the flowering quince

Their reds appeared the same

His hands and knees had no idea

They could be such flowers

Nor did the quince cognize

It had such human powers

In The Heart Valentine

In the heart there is a narrow gap

I've squeezed through

Between two towering

Walls of stone a point

I could have been caught at

If I hadn't thought

To climb over and from there

The passage opened wide

And I could descend

Though I still haven't made it

To that valley's silver thread

I could see it now hurrying on

Carrying all the light left

To bring me home

Selfie's Valentine

I took a selfie of my shadow

Supine on the scintillant snow

Its dark dial warning me

The light was growing late

And another of the shadow

Of the bare branches of a tree

Across which other shadows sailed

That could have been its leaves

Until I entered the shadow world

Of darker and more delicate gray

And came unhinged from the sun

As if I could go my own way

My furtive shadow on the run

Absolved by yet another noon

At The Last Valentine

A day to catch up

With all the days

That won't wait

That won't last

A rush of cars

Speeding past you

Leaving you alone

On the open road

In the middle

Of the desert

The first green

Just coming on

At last going

Nowhere being

No one now

Hillside's Valentine

On the horizon just over there

Distance always seems so peaceful

Except for those little fires

Springing up everywhere

From here we can watch

Another city burn while the sun

With startling beauty

Illuminates our loss

Herself escaping unharmed

And slowly we'll be standing

As if placed among the planets

And the stars in their millions

Each a life we have left to live

And all the time in the world

My Last Teacher's Valentine

Now an old woman of some means

Who'd once been a beauty queen

She could afford a gardener

And a secretary/house cleaner

So her students could come and sit

In a quiet spotless room

Where she would show them pictures

Of children at different ages

Some with marble faces

And still-fresh smiles

And paintings of a child turning

From his mother's right 

Shoulder to her left squirming

To get a better look at you

There in her candlelight

Children's Valentine

With a grin of wonderment

She confesses how both she

And her husband were terrible

Defiant arrogant children

Where did we come from

To punish our good parents

And now she has seven

Grandchildren all under nine

She enjoys beyond gold

The mystery she says

Is how all those years

Of being a brat taught me

What we as children are up against

And how to love and comfort them

Allegorical Valentine

When their willowy daughter Love

Married Freedom the lawyer's son

(These really were their given names)

They fought and fought

Made up and made up again

Their upstairs neighbors Hate and Scorn

Banged on the ceiling to no avail

When Freedom was on a rampage

And Love would take him to bed

Or turn the music up louder

So they could dance and sing

Until they were forced to break the lease

One day in the rain last spring

I heard they're homeless now

Or maybe gone back to Greece

Occult Valentine

Yesterday Mars snuck

Behind the moon rising

Full and resplendent

To their rendezvous

Like someone coming up

Behind you or a bee

Buzzing around a blossom

So you stand very still

While it makes its passage

Emerging chastened on the other side

And from that theater of stars

Sighs of relief descend

That set our wolves to howling

In our world without end

Annual Physical Valentine

Stripped before a beautiful stranger

Young enough to be my soul

So this is what you've been up to

All these many lives she smiles

As she probes with artifice and skill

My every orifice and cranny

To find how far some darkness

Has gotten into me how much

Reserves are left to go on fighting

She smiles but she is not amused

As I resume what modesty I've saved

Getting dressed and slipping back

Into this my one and only body

Diagnosis mortal with immortal parts

Still doomed for resurrection

Caught Valentine

But one morning he was caught

In a sudden net of birds

Coasting just above his head

It is the end he thought

Just like this evacuation

The soul rushing up out of the body

And then dropped back in again

Sufficient miracle to grasp

Other eyes were fleetingly

Watching over him

When their eyes met

And he was carried off

A veil was rent and he could glimpse

The glory that would shatter him

Hammering Away Valentine

Happily his little radio sings

Love songs in foreign languages

While the lonely carpenter

Slowly rebuilds the world

From the last few trees and birds

Resting quietly at noon to enjoy

His mother's delicious sandwiches

She got up early to prepare

Never knowing when he'd return

Sometimes he's gone for years

Sometimes she wishes secretly

He'd give it all up and come home

But she knows how much love is left

When everything else is gone

Earth's Valentine

Smaller and smaller every year

The earth will finally collapse

In upon itself through the black

Hole swallowing at its center

Even now it's being peeled away

I hear the shovels digging up the graves

To plant more bodies in the news

The forests shunting to a halt

The harrowing implication 

We must let it all go

And build yet another home

Out of the nothing left

Take up a little dirt and water

And rub it on our eyes

To see it all begin again

The sun inside the moon returned

Whatever our courage can manage

Whatever our hearts can salvage

Lady Light Valentine

Light is a lady who loves the darkness

Then leaves it to itself alone

If that's the way you want it she goes

Then that's the way it will be

But think about what I said

I will come back when you

Have exhausted all your quarrels

The hard words you can't

Take back I will absolve them all

Every cruelty I will sever

With a bright leaf and lift

You tenderly in my arms

Who knows what galaxies we beget

When we lie down together

Unfound Valentine

How many keep rushing back

As if they'd forgotten something

They can't remember 

When they get here

No idea what urgency

Compels them to return

Unless uncertainty itself

The sense of something missing

That makes going on

Impossible without it

They stand there in the middle

Of the room stared at

By those who love them

Struggling to separate

Panic from wonder

The past unknown as the future

That something still unfound

Calling Valentine

I got a call from the Unknown

Who left no message but

A call-back number

Which I dialed and kept

Getting a busy signal

But it they she randomly

Keep calling me

And even when I do pick-up

There's only the sound

Of time breathing in and out

I pretend it's some old friend

From the other side of the world

Who saved my number

To see if I'd remember him

Lord's Valentine

In the end did I let you down again

But that was only my beginning

I kept posing as myself

Shifting ideas of who I might be

From one hand to the other

I have always been divided

And half-afraid of love

And yet convinced it is all

That matters the best thing

You gave to me I can see it now

Don't let my leaving be

The last thing to let you down

In a way I'm glad

We have so far to go

Epiphany Valentine

Already talking back to his mother

The twelve day old child looks up

From her breast to welcome

The wealth and wisdom of the world

Like any child he is amazed

By the magic they perform

And the stories of their lives

You can tell by his dreamy smile

And in the opposite window

A naked man stands in a river

Fishes for his feet his hands

Open to receive not a part

But behold the entire future

Epiphany Eve Valentine

There is in us a deep desire

To find something to adore

A body or a bird or a great cause

To which we can surrender

Always and everywhere

Separately and collectively

We have built an altar in our hearts

To something better than ourselves

To emulate and worship

With our burnt offerings

We seem to sense something there

That might restore us to our

Former glory we vaguely recall

To our place among the stars

Sign's Valentine

Two heavy volcanic stones

I rescued from the coast

One oblong but flat enough

To place the other on

In the shape of a fish's head

One oval eye embedded

With a gleaming yellow shell

A circle for a mouth

I set them on the wall

Above my wooden gate

To remind me of Jonah

And the rollicking sea

Here in the desert

In the belly of the world

Awaiting my delivery

Sprouting Valentine

I spy the past limping

Winding through the future trees

It keeps coming back

Showing up in the oddest places

Today I found a seed in my pocket

A tiny brown planet

Worn down by too many nights

Spun far out of its orbit

All these years keeping

A consciousness of me

I felt it held me in its grip

Longing to be planted somewhere 

As soon as I would find it

How much time we'd wasted

Hurrying toward the ground

How Else Valentine

At the end of the year

When the year just resurrects

Another year I cleared

My small closet of all

I'd counted on the treasures

I'd stashed away and found

An old shopping-cart 

And piled all of them in

And walked the streets

Of last year's dreams

It all had to go

Into memory's savings account

And little by little would

Until that closet was empty

The shelves cleared of dust

A few hangers jangling

To hang the future on

How else stay calm

How else go on

Cast Out Valentine

After the first rejection

Which must come to everyone

Little acts of kindness

Tried to cover it up

But they knew they had to flee

Freeing and cleansing at first

To leave everything behind

Watching terror shrink

 

With every eager step away

After all it was a coming home

To old friends who took them in

Found them a little house

 

On the edge of town

Where the boy could play

And grow wonderful in peace

Getting ready to return