Coming Home Valentine

Where was I

I was going somewhere

Sitting in the middle 

Of a plane a young boy

In the back talking on and on

At the top of his voice 

Everyone else trying

To sleep and in the front

Seats somewhere a toddler

Screaming on and on

It was a performance

Of considerable power

I tried to read your book

About the decisions

We must make soon

I had to rally all my will

And concentration 

To endure your story 

Of innocence and murder

Endless talk on one side

Endless wailing on the other 

 

Never Valentine

A gray day

The muse away

Smug as a bug

With nothing to say 

Except this mute

Announcement that

Whatever you're having

I'll have that too

It's been a long day

And it's just started

Nothing and everything to do

Quietly and stealthily 

Staying openhearted

Never parted 

Just So You Know Valentine

Two crows way up

Pursing a hawk

In dizzy circles

We watched until

They melted away

The sun swam in

Whale-like and back

Up into the clouds 

It is Christmas today

Whenever you read this

Just as I was trying

To reach you and we both

Hung up at the same time

Laughing and calling back

What was that 

Oh there you are 

And We Valentine

I wonder if we don't see

Very far into the future

Because what we do see

We don't like and turn back

To the uncertain present

But the present task is always

To prepare the future

Imagination is useless

If it only serves the past 

Whose future we turned out to be

How can we now working together

With thoughtful hearts

Despite the crows

Yet make a human being 

Way Back Valentine

Never more carefree

Than when you're lost 

And don't know it yet

That mountain that shouldn't

Be there wakes you up

From the music blasting

Singing at the top of your lungs

Three hours the wrong way

To turn or not turn back

Push on to another life

Existence is so temporary

And your favorite sickle moon

Is just rising over there

The bright rim of a cup

Lifting the darkness to your lips

Rolling all the windows down 

Scourged Valentine

We have a flicker

Living with us now

These sunny winter days

Who comes and goes

Reading the riot act to us

With piercing shrieks

Finding us all so frustrating

Recalcitrant and lame

How many times do I have to

Startle you all awake

And you hunching over there

Don't think I don't see you

For a shirker and simpleton

Trying to get away with it

By writing it all down 

Always Valentine

The thing about the light

Is that it's always being

Newly-minted newly-arrayed 

Replacing the old light

Breathing its last gasp

Having finally reached

Its moment of decision

Whether to breath the earth

Back in again or let it darken

The thing about the light

Is that it's always conscious

Of what it loves

Stopping and turning back

To find it again 

Accidental Valentine

A button on the cuff

Of my shirt hit

The edge of the cup

A tiny bell rang out 

The smallest sweetest 

Note in the world

The chime of some clock

Dissolving time 

As if it was all accidental

And yet I could have

Spilled the cup

Reaching across the table

Passed by not alerted

By that pure bell 

Four Valentines

Gabriel conceive me

A blaze of light on snow

Raphael heal me

What else are flowers for

Uriel enlighten me

Out beyond the stars

Michael receive me 

In the rattling of the leaves

In the fog above the creek

Give me back all my illusions

In the panorama of your gaze 

Open wide my life

That this new dying

Be my last my first 

If You Go Valentine

If you go to the philosophy store

Recently relocated nearer the docks 

For stimulating boat-rides under the stars

Take this buy-one get-one coupon 

I've been saving about to expire

For a book to set me on fire

You might find it in a back room

A few copies left of your own

Past lives in manuscript form

My doctoral thesis in which 

I argue there was ever only

One real person on the earth

Though it would take a while 

For so many to accept it 

Higher Mathematics Valentine

If I spend ninety percent

Of the sun thinking only

Of myself that leaves ten

Thinking of the world

Sun take away world

Only equals the minus of myself

Except for the addition of you

You dare to sum me up

If I can put it like that

With a glance or a kiss

Will I never not be foolish

In your midst 

Still counting on my fingers

All your suns and worlds 

Nothing Here Valentine

A sunny day in the yard

Wrecking all the records 

Warm when it should be cold 

But if you sit here with me

 

You can see how the breeze

Is made up of many

Little strands weaving 

Through the rusting leaves

 

Stirred into a whirl here

Or trembling over there 

How it's not one thing at all

But a thousand creatures

 

Breaking free and inter-mingling 

Inviting us to join the dance

We may not get another chance

If nothing here can stay 

Gaudete Sunday Valentine

The first music wasn't just the trees

Though they tried to reassemble it

It must have been they who suggested

How to capture it on paper 

Don't you remember that first sound

That solitary mineral vowel

Doesn't it seem symphonic to you now

When you reach back to hear its

Faint echo in your blood

That pulsing muddy sound

Only the earth could utter

In the last minutes of its travail 

How it pleaded and pleaded

And finally that song came down 

 

My Mind's Valentine

A warehouse at the edge of town

Is how I think of my mind

Or a thousand coins dug up

Buried in Roman times

Or a little girl walking to school 

In freezing morning light 

Or a hiker fallen

In a sunny canyon 

Waiting to be found

But mostly it's just

A stretch of beach

Where it has gone

To meet a certain friend

A love without an end 

Not Yet Valentine

For the third morning in a row

What sounds like rain on my roof

A large flock of starlings

Landing and walking around

And then as one in a whoosh

They ascend leaving behind

A silence so profound

I'm left shaken dumbfound

Feeling strangely blessed

On that first day I was outside

And watched them all descend

Amazed and somewhat alarmed

But on the second and the third 

Day when they returned I knew

Something heavenly was meant

To take me with them when they went

New Songs Valentine

Why do the birds

Stick to their clans

Why not intermarry

The sparrow with

The hummingbird

A fluttering unicorn 

Could birth and what

New songs would come 

From the pink flamingo

Wrapped in the icy swan

A flicker's squawk 

Seduced by a lark

Or a shuddering  peacock

Humbled by a handsome hawk 

Certain Valentine

At a certain spot in the yard

A fragrance stopped me 

The body of a spirit

I could not identify at first

No flower but a scent

Standing waiting there

To be inhaled the way

You lift an old shirt

Of someone gone to taste

Their perfumed sweat again

Still lingering there

Notes of myrrh and woodbine

From the work of days

Receive my happy tears 

Gaudete Valentine

Over the last few weeks 

Of her long pregnancy

She grew weary 

Carrying about

So much joy

And silent worry

The child turning

Inside her nudging

Its way forward

Whispered to her

Do not be afraid

See I have ten fingers

And ten toes a heart

To fill the world

Yourself my child 

Bestial Valentine

Somehow this cat insists

On sitting on my lap

And purring heavily

And reaching up one paw

To touch my neck

With a single claw

As if to say I could

Kill you but I can't

I adore you so much

The beast in me to which

You seem divine

Laid down like a lamb

And I don't dare to move

So close to love 

Sun's Valentine

Carried up and down

By the seriousness of the sun

As we are every day

Bouncing on this slow-motion

Trampoline of the earth

Taking a trouncing 

And finally lying down flat

So our dreams can filter down

And the stars restore us

To some semblance of ourselves

Ready or unready for the world

It's just that I think of us all

Every morning waking up and

Send you greetings from my soul 

Dan's Valentine

I love the fall best of all

More than winter's shimmer 

Or summer's thrall

But fall when spring

Comes back to settle

In a pool of leaves

All its suns delivered

All its courage spent

On a few brave seeds

All its promises kept

For a few sunny days

New life old death

Dancing together again

Without a care in the world

In a clearing in the woods 

Intended Valentine

The invention of the material world

Was always a delicate operation

The great had to want to become

Smaller and smaller

Light squeezed into bodies

From the outset a painful

And yet exuberant process

Of dissolving and giving birth 

And frequently they must 

Have to stand back in wonder 

At what they're painting

With their brilliant colors seeing

If they're still on the right track

To the masterpiece they intended 

Inevitable Valentine

If there is only one consciousness

What is this purple flower doing here

This flesh and bones

Don't we have to imagine 

The mind that made it

Dissatisfied with being just air

Deciding to draw real leaves

A material flower

A body to be loved

And cast aside

Time devouring time

Consciousness opening its mouth

So wide it encompasses

Us all in one gulp 

Once Loved Valentine

The thought of you dropped into my head

And immediately a mockingbird

Landed right in front of me

Glanced at me and hurried off

Scratching in the grass then gone

But not before I recognized 

You'd heard me and sent this bird 

To show me one of the things 

You've become living on the other side 

That you are never far away

Even when I forget to think

How once loved there remains

An abiding connection

An immediate reply

Out of a blue sky 

My Teacher's Valentine

Assembling my unruly thoughts

The practical comes first 

I try to focus on the rhythm

Of their confusion like a classroom

Of raucous kids before the teacher

Walks in and they all rush

To take their places

Three Greek words

Are written on the board

But no hands go up

To say what they mean

And the teacher wrapped

Up in some poem is staring

Out the window again