Friday, July 4, 2025

For Valentine

Not feeling you're being loved enough 
Yet always doubting the love you're given  
You start to wonder what love is for
And if you're lovable at all  
Is there a right to be loved 
And a right kind of love
To be loved with 
Where is its source 
In us or is it a gift 
You're born with
A flare you have for it
Or else you wrestle
A whole life to let
It in let it accomplish
All it strives for  

Still There Valentine

If I'm not going back to the Middle Ages
I'm going back to ancient Greece 
Secretly behind my outward life 
I keep seeing flashes of those times
I love the old geography and weather
Where so many lived now bare and quiet
No stone in its rightful place 
That doesn't nag at me to remember
What I keep coming back to breath 
The arguments in the clear air
The first green thoughts emerging again
Where they built temples to them
And called them gods and saints
To find a part of me still there 

Thursday, July 3, 2025

One More Valentine

Music is the slyest art
Seeding all we see around us
The very air who breathes us
Full of voices and violins 
Waiting for us to learn the words
Of rejection and joy and sing along
But who can believe this music
Feeble words give rise to
From an orchestra of unending love
Only reaching us in an echo
What it does once inside the brain
Is some powerful magic
Working its way with us
Just one more dance 

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

For the Feast of All Daughters Valentine (for Dan)

I'll pour you a glass
If you cut me a slice
Of that fresh-baked bread
The wine keeps but the bread stales
If we aren't quick on our feet 
Us two old men blessed
With daughters who love
Their fathers aren't all
Children strangers at first
Adventuring great distances
Their time come round
For our paths to cross again
Weaving who we're becoming
So let's toast to the miracles
It's you and me they found