Hilltop Valentine

We could not see

But felt it lifting

The sun we knew

Was fulsome there

Behind occluding clouds

He was rising again

We could not touch him

But dumbly stand

At the top of the hill

Watching people climbing up

The winding path to us 

The wind had an icy bite to it

Streaming through the silent crowd

Until a woman started to sing

And one by one we let our breath

Join the angels joyful there

 

Where Valentine

At the outer limits of my patience

Where my strength peters out

At the deep end of generosity

Where I find myself sinking

At the last bridge of compassion

Where it hurts too much to grin

At the mother-lode of anger 

Where I drop the hammer

Exchanging pain for pain

At the border of betrayal

Where I hear myself saying

I do not know him

The one I long to know

Where I find forgiveness waiting

Like an ocean at a shore

Secret Valentine

Our souls are like a secret shared

Slowly being divulged to us

A festival of clues and parts

We weave into a destiny of sorts

Calmly accepted and fiercely opposed

If I tell you who I am

And how could I not

It doesn't mean I know

I seem so many selves

A quarrelsome lot of fools 

A whirling conclave of birds

A longing to be held and hold

Everyone I meet and say

Your secret's safe with me

The Thought Of Thoughts Valentine

I can feel my thoughts

Gathering at the back of my head

Crowds waiting at the doors

Come for some performance

But right now while

The theater is dark and empty 

I go over my lines with you

It's a strange new beautiful

Play you've given us

Re-mounted every year

Out of the graves of our heads

Like mine now dark and empty

A dim light grows faintly brighter

And suddenly all the lights come up

Before Valentine

There must have been a world

Before this literal one when

A letter was just a gesture

A stirring of the wind

Each its own silent sign

Before the twelve gods gathered

To sing speaking into being

Bestow the sounds each its own

What a cacophony deafening 

They must have made at last

Everyone talking at once

Clamoring to be heard

Until a solemn child stepped out

Onto the quiet empty stage

And spoke the first coherent word

Easter Tuesday Valentine

That first week

Of his new body 

Of crystalline light

And prismatic colors 

I try to imagine

The joy he must have felt

At all he had accomplished

Now on his way to visit

His family and friends

That joy he knew 

Would use up all

The centuries to come 

Filtering down through us

This earth he loves so much

Played With Valentine

One of those mysterious days

When the clouds fly back and forth

Eclipsing then releasing the sun

A lamp turned off and on

A rush of gloom invading

Everything and then the light

Joyfully rushing in 

A child's game or a god's

Now you see me now

You don't I play along

Dashed down in darkness

When you're gone 

Though I feel you still there

Overwhelmed when you return

So Far Valentine

 If clouds used to be trees

Who wrestled free to soar

Then trees used to be thoughts 

Rising green from the ground

But only so far before 

Leaves and birds re-shackle them

To perennial configurations

The evidence of the clouds

Some trees connect

With a new source of feeling

A buoyancy inside themselves

That gets as far as flowers

Clouds caught in their branches

Thoughts that fall and soar

One Who Knew Valentine

Apparently those Greeks were wrong

Who thought a god could never become

A true human being would never

Take on such ignominy and die

A common criminal

So now today they think

Though great he was just a man

But there was one still young

Enough to feel the depths

Tenderness can reach  

Standing beneath his death

One who knew already

From his own experience

Love's origin and end

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