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