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