Operatic Valentine

How many acts are there left

In this singing world

How many scribbled drafts

And obvious revisions

Do we have to go through

To get it down

To the right inflections

Because I love you isn't 

Enough syllables

To get you there

The one thing that could

Actually be believed

The thing that made you

Stop and stare

Beauty undressing truth

The curtain closing  

Another Birthday Valentine

I slept in till ten

This morning something

I don't often allow

Because it was the birthday

Of your death and we'd stayed

Up all night talking

Long distance love affair

Now we meet up in the ether 

You half-reaching me

And I almost touching you

What's still here when they

Carry the body away

The body that loves the world 

So much it never wants

To leave except the pain

That carries it away 

Harbored By the Dead Valentine

We don't see them

Except in dreams 

But they're still there

They see us vividly

While ours is a coarse

Sensing of their presence

Like Gabriel they just appear

Like Mary we don't believe it

At first at times their love

Breaks through 

To remind us

We are always

Safe at home 

Sometimes laughing 

Predictive Valentine

After the war

Of all against all

We will hear 

A Baptist choir

John will come again

To the river and wait

Eternity will wait

Will you show up

Even if only at the last minute

Rushing in through the trees

Did you almost sleep through it 

Alarm after alarm going off 

Who would want to be the Christ

When you think of all that means 

Brothers Valentine

I think it's our clever brother Lucifer

Who teaches us about feeling free 

To do whatever we want

While it's the other brother

Who teaches us about grace

That mysterious element in the world

Or what is freedom for

He had his father's habits

And his mother's darling eyes

Which made him unafraid 

And eager as a child

To accept the whole world 

He must be in his twenties now

Still climbing the empty hills

Always just arriving

In the village of some heart 

Make Way Valentine

A beautifully cool day in May

Which seldom happens in the desert

And then the almost unrecognizable 

Sound of rain's answered prayer

Sweeping through the yard

The seasons themselves

Coming in out of order 

A few days of fall

Followed by blazing summer

Spring lost in the shuffle

I sense the air around me

Filling with bright angels 

And witches on long brooms

Come to clear a new path 

Breaking Through Valentine

Defying evolution

Every now and then

There's a revolution

In the human heart

Defying human reason

When faith is not enough

For hope to live on

Heaven intervenes

In some atmospheric way

It cannot help itself

But must rush in to rescue

What it can like a crazy man 

Running into a burning house

This human heart we carry

Through the flames 

At The Urgent Care Valentine

How is violence

Received in heaven

Is it carried in

On a stretcher bleeding

He was only a boy

Staring up at the doctor

He lost his temper

And killed his brother

Is there still one bed

Left for him enough

Of the right medicine

To slowly recover

But the wards are full

And we are running out of doctors 

More Valentine

I listened to the old men

Speak what they had learned 

As young men eager and afraid

In the temples of longing and love

What stuck with them

Through all the vagaries

And unexpected turns

The stones and shells

They would take back with them

To lay at the feet of love

Their hearts like begging bowls

Their eyes brimming with tears

Their silent wish in the end

To be sent back for more

After All Valentine

For one to get to three

It must endure duality

It must break the soul

Into an army of opposites

Warring in the will

While all along

It is only the heart

That can mend the mind 

Torn apart its cities

Laid waste its bodies

Screaming for their mothers

What is the heart after all

But a hovering thing

Our only true power 

Does Life Live For Itself Alone Valentine

My feet are burning in the sun

While a cold breeze swims 

Around my head 

Never more alive

And in between

My gathering body sits 

A shade in shade 

At one of death's bus-stops

Far out in the hills I suppose

Where it rushes past me

Forgetting to stop again and again 

I heard someone say

He didn't want to be here anymore

He thought his life a shame

To be relieved of by some peace

And he was right

But it's not that simple quite 

Through All Valentine

Today for a few minutes

The sinking sun and the full

Moon rising stand in the same sky

The earth between them

Taking a cosmic selfie

Of the little family they are

Who mothered you

Who fathered you they ask 

Receive the warmth of the sun

The inheritance of your heart

Receive the blessing of the moon 

With all its promises

Never think we do not

Hold you in our arms

Through all your nights and days 

Sensed Valentine

It may not be polite

To peer into someone else's soul

Unless one is invited in 

And yet that's what we're

Doing most of the time

We sense something magnificent

Inside each of us but

It will take the devil

To find it some days

Love is this contractual

Arrangement it is binding

And we struggle through

The fine print to be read

In not too harsh a light 

Its Own Valentine

True words were put

Into my mouth 

I just spoke them

False words were put

Into my mouth

I just swallowed them

By the time I showed

Up for myself

I was struggling

To sense the difference

Can only a true mind

Find the true word

And know to speak it

As its own 

Sarah's Valentine

Wrapping up a long love

Now you can carefully

Step back and behold

All the faces of the children

The years have taught you

And slip back into

That younger self

Still waiting for you

On some London corner

No one retires

From their childhood

Time comes to resume

The art of it

A beautiful scarf

Can make a start 

When I Was Young Valentine

I turned up late

But just at the right time

What was another castle

Along the way the air

Was full of them 

Some kind of celebration

Was going on great dignitaries

Were being seated in a long hall

A solemn mood prevailed

I stood in a corner

And watched while

We all were lifted

Into a kind of glory

Momentarily unquestionably

And then the hall was empty

And my horse whinnying to go on 

So Much Valentine

When he's in the mood

I let Lucifer rage on

Or is it his shadow half

He has so much to say

That speaks to me 

So much makes sense

About the insufficiency

Of the earth our paltry

Lives our mineral souls

He keeps forgetting

You are in the room

He doesn't notice you

Half-smiling waiting

For him to finish so we

Can resume our chat  

All Of You Valentine

There is a lot of copulation

In the world mostly seasonal

And a lot of cupolas

Scattered among them

And hidden narrow streets

In the cities of music

Leftover from the Romans

Who lost the refinement of the Greeks

When love got confused with passion

What to make of a body

Which is our whole concern

Why else come to earth 

But when I say I love you

I do mean it all of you

Our bodies bundles of light

And our trembling souls 

Potential Valentine

Heaven is not yet Heaven

The earth is not yet Earth

And the doorway moon

Creaking on its hinges

Ever in need of repair

How hard the sun strives

To become Sun one day

And the stars like children

Still rushing off to school

How could we all not

Have so much more to be

To say to do to touch 

Eternity just our potential

For an actual life 

Anyone Valentine

Smarten up young man

My mother would say to me 

I still hear her voice

Pretending sternness 

As if eighty years stopped

Nothing between us 

Now I see her

In three phases

Closest to her

When she was

Seventeen and had

Just lost her mother

In the second she

Betrayed me or so

I thought in the third

An old woman

Anyone would love 

What Was All That Valentine

What if we meet up again in passing

On the day before all the other days 

Or on the night after all

The other nights

I know I know you

Give me a minute

But you say your name

Yes now it's all 

Coming back to me

Pictures of you still hang

In Florence so many

Variations of your face

The empty slate of love

Let it be all my pleasure

To finally meet

The real woman

Behind it all 

Intrusive Valentine

Forgive this intrusion

On your grief dear world 

But the resurrection 

Has already happened

I can insist on this

Because every night still gets

Filled with dreaming stars

And every morning I wake up

To a new revelation

Which otherwise wouldn't happen 

Another piece of the puzzle

Slides into place

Love takes its time

Moving us rejecting us

Into its perfect picture 

Looking Back Valentine

I nominate 'Strange Fruit' to be

The best poem of the 20th century

Or at least the most  universal

Who knew the Statue of Liberty

Could sing in the voice of Billie Holiday

I see her traipsing around the world

Visiting every country

People flocking to hear her sing

How she calls them out

The malicious the incompetence

Buried in each of us

Liberty's broken heart

Broken to be mended

Stitch by stitch by love 

Copper Valentine

Brimming with joy

The copper butterfly 

Can hardly

Contain itself 

How can you

Just sit there

Don't you have 

Enough body 

To dance your

Grief away

Let me show you

How to swirl

And dive 

Into this rippling

Sea of joy 

Ginny's Valentine

She had the gift of laughter

Which is the one gift

We all need while

So many do without it

But how quickly laughter

Turns to tears we cry

For ourselves left here alone

Carrying around with us

This great gap in  our hearts

How can you be invisible to me

When I see you everywhere I look

But there is no loss in love

Once given it goes on and on

We take comfort in your laughter 

This Morning's Movie Valentine

Just waking a black beetle

Flops down on the pavement

Staggers a few steps forward

Then flies off over the roof

Beautiful sapphire wings

Catching the sun for a second

A black cat saunters by

Stops to stare at me

With such sad eyes 

Then saunters off 

It occurs to me

The stars behind this blue sky

Are never not brilliant

Never not shedding their light 

From Far Away Valentine

In this morning's conversation

With my angel I asked

If she could trust me  

To be on my own 

For a few hours today

And not fall apart

So she could go and stand

With you dear heart 

While you go through

Your crisis in case

Your angel could use

Just a little more light

While you decide

Whether to come or go 

Taken Valentine

Our fallen tree left behind

A single sapling we will

Have to move to where

Its mother stood and grew

Such shade and flowers 

For so many summers

All that work just to induce

That particular blue

Only possible in our yard

Through those particular years

I mean the soil had to be

Just the right mixture of iron

And mercy so even the sun

Stands back amazed

Taken by that blue 

Sooner Or Later Valentine

What if every morning on waking

Sitting on the edge of your bed waiting

Watching the echo of your dreams

And that other world fading

Where did it take you

Settling back into your body

Out of the air into a stone again

You fall awake you open up

The little scroll that holds

The secret message of your life

Always the same words

I made you for today

I gave you my life

But sooner or later you

Must be responsible for the world 

In Media Res Valentine

We go to the moon

Just to fly by

To peer into its

Darker side

Are we surprised 

We go to war 

Without knowing why

Children still playing

With swords

We go to lunch

With an old friend

Who has written

A new poem about love

And is so excited

To give it to the world 

The Other Half Of The Story Valentine

Once a bird

A chickadee maybe 

But here you are

A brilliant woman now

How we are always

Being worked on

Working on ourselves 

But in your life as a bird

You were always my daughter

Sharing your happiness with me 

Happy to be here in the world

That spark of life

No one long can stifle

When you became a bird

What I Know Valentine

I think I know you better

Than anyone else in the world

I think I know you deeper

That you know yourself

Or I know myself

For that matter some days

This love of learning

More and more about you

And you working so diligently

To get to know yourself in me

I think you know I know

There is something past love

I call it friendship

Where love is known 

Hard Valentine

When you get enough of time

One long series of embarrassments 

In which now and then

Small miracles still happen

Resounding flashes

That confirm eternity

Still running alongside us

We are so expendably immortal 

Isn't that we came for

To spend the wealth

Of our fire burning up

The imposter in us

The world is so hard to love

We keep coming back to fix it 

Surviving Valentine

Aren't there souls in heaven also

Who go to bed hungry for a time

Because those they love on earth

Don't believe their lives go on

But at least there on the shore

After a long night waiting

Old friends rush in

To meet them surely

And give them a place

To rest and to adjust

To heaven's air and light

And bring them cups of mercy

To share with those they love

On earth as it must be above 

Clear Valentine

The gold lantana has blossomed

Among the nameless purple flowers

When I looked them up

It said elegiac and sublime 

But they prefer to never die

Never not be flowering

It's clear they were waiting

For the gold umbels

To come among them

As one waits for 

One's love to come home

Love that started out

So meek and humble

Look how powerful it's grown 

Overlap's Valentine

Where is the overlap

Of the world that passes

Through your mind 

With the world that passes

Through mine where is

The place where we embrace

So far in the distance

We forget that's where

We set out for

So long ago one day

We'll realize we're going

Nowhere unless

We take the whole world

With us in our arms 

Ours Valentine

Sometimes I think our bodies

Are like clenched fists

We hold so tightly things

Of this ephemeral world

Is it because it's all so fleeting

We get a little frightened

Nothing's really there

While everything's hurrying on

To the next seemingly

Inevitable step in the plan

Only in that little moment that is ours

Between being pulled back

Or pushed forward 

When we think of those we love

Does the world begin to make sense 

Alchymical Valentine

Fire standing next to ice

The ice melting into water

Extinguishing the fire 

Thus a puddle's made 

From what's leftover

Leaves and ash 

Houses falling

Caught half way

And that enormous sun

Floating in over the water 

And I have not kissed you 

Yet today what light is left

Whatever has happened

But at least there's always that

To look forward to not miss 

 

Good Friday Valentine

You will be handed

A bowl of porridge

Because you are an old horse 

Making it through the winter

Which is the summer of your years

Since it doesn't snow here

And the beach isn't far away

There is a pattern to all this

Like a quilt thrown over

Your back and the bit 

Sinking into your teeth

The last days ridden

Faster than the first

And the porridge sweet 

Here On Earth Valentine

There is a swaying tree

Eclipsing a cloud and me

But now the cloud's

Moved on to other trees

Fleeing from the crows

A swallowtail crosses

Left to right and for

A moment after

Reminded of something

Everything pauses

As if to embrace

Everything separate

Then turns slowly 

And waltzes away 

Seriously Valentine

Did you seriously believe

We could get to some resurrection

Without passing through the cross

Did you really think it was all a story

In which you played no part

So far out on the periphery

Of your closed private life

The myth there is glory

In love's suffering and sorrow

Was it all lost on you

No worries every year

You get another chance 

Or did you seriously convince yourself

Spring could possibly forget

And not come back for you 

 

Night Watch Valentine

Go to bed old man

The full moon says

I'll keep an eye for you

But I just sit and stare

Right back at it

Swaying in my chair

Neither warm nor cold

Neither alive nor dead

Weaving through the poplar tree

The bobbin of some destiny

We all will share

But just then bright Venus chimed in

Over my shoulders flung 

One of her favorite songs

Begging me to stand

And sing with her alone

Whatever memory can stir

Whatever love intends 

Writ Valentine

We trade experiences

You driving down the street

Seeing two contrails making an X

And in its upper part a cloud

Catching the sun so brightly 

A little rainbow throbs

Tucked in its thigh

Like an exposed nerve

A single pulsing nerve

Writ large in the sky

But no one's looking 

No one seems to be listening

To its obvious prophecy

As you drive by

Making me forget

What I wanted to say 

 

This Morning's Valentine

Take this morning from me gently

Don't forget even the giggling

Of these birds or that lizard

Creeping up the wall

Take it from my lips

These words that taste

Like sweet and bitter flowers

This morning come like Christ

This breeze his body 

Take it to your breast

Let it fill your lungs

And set loose your heart

For once be certain in you

He's placed his trust 

 

About Valentine

I think we come here

To be taunted by joy 

Which sometimes sweeps in

Upon us but joy is shy

And often bullied by

Her giant brother sadness 

But I think we come here

To settle the argument

Between eternal joy

And temporary sorrow 

And trace back

Its family line to the first

Sun that still shines

That little egg about to burst 

Hanging Valentine

A poem is like two aspirin

They either work 

Or they don't

To relieve the pain

Screeching down your leg

It's meant to be medicinal

To calm the throbbing thirst

For something real but beautiful

Or else it never makes it there 

Too long looked back on 

So it falls into the shades

We must suffer the poem

If it will do some good

The poem of pain there

Hanging from the wood 

Somehow Valentine

From Oedipus to Hamlet to Faust

A skip and a jump to us

Covered in a semester

Over coffee and smoke 

From Gilgamesh to Joan of Arc

To little Robert Maxwell 

Fetching light from the dark

Mineral brain to us

And we come back at last

In an electromagnetic rush 

For the next deciding battle

Fire against fire and light

Against hate and somehow a love

That embraces it all 

Slow Train Valentine

We are so small

It's hard not to wallow

In our smallness

Or let it overwhelm us

We are so huge

It's easy to get carried away 

With the fullness of ourselves

And forget to listen just listen 

The first rule of having a baby

Is not to forget the baby

The grocery clerk reminds me

And yet it keeps happening

How many billion years

Will it take the earth to become

A sapphire or a diamond 

We Are All Refugees Valentine

The thing about the earth

Is what to do with a body

As if in life we are given

A certain amount of gold

To spend on anything we like

And what to do about the soul 

Always hanging around one's neck

Always wanting to get

Something done but let's

Go for a walk she says

Love takes refuge on earth

As if it had nowhere else to go

Still trying to build a home 

Where Valentine

If you sit among holy spirits

It's appropriate to quake

It's a little in your face

To look them in the eyes

If you are a child brought

To your first church

To meet the God and you

Are not prepared 

For another fearful father 

Where is the religion

Where the child meets the child

And a lifetime friendship

Is fatefully arranged

Out of a simple gesture 

Missing Valentine

I try to imagine

The soul of my mother 

Before she came down

Agreeing to accept me

As her son did I

Talk her into it

Out of some debt

We still owe one another

We keep missing

Our Madonna years

You holding me

Me rocking you

Poised upon the altar

Of our hopes and fears 

History Is What Is Hidden Valentine

If you look at the multiple ways

The past keeps losing its grip

On what must be remembered

So it all has to be done

All over again from the start

As in a schoolchild's notebook

A hundred lines of 'I am not stupid

I am not that stupid' but not to have

Lost on me the hours

Of the turning of the light

You sun of love

Still paying the cost

Of all we've lost 

Nothing More Valentine

The armies of the cold

And the armies of the warmth

Are massing along the creek

And then dissolving into fog

The way fear melts away

When you catch sight

Of someone you love

And the real world

Reveals itself as nothing

More beautiful

Than this sitting by a creek

Feet freezing

Faces burning 

Dissolving into fog 

Undecided Valentine

Are you a warrior

Or a pilgrim passing by

Do you have something in mind

When you consider each day

What needs to be done

Going out to meet it 

Or do you take it

As it comes

Surfing the waves

Almost drowning or

Laying on the beach

With absolute trust

The angels will work it out

Heaven will tend its sheep 

Early Valentine

Alright we get it

Another one about a bird

But don't you sometimes 

Want to mock yourself

Like the proud mockingbird

Perfecting his song those

Few notes over and over 

It was given him to work on

Art for art's sake

But secretly his mate

Somewhere is overwhelmed

Against her better judgment 

Such is the insistence of his song

The early days of love 

Left Valentine

I take a spoon of honey

In my coffee in the morning 

And sit outside in the shade

And wonder how many

Others share the privilege

Of hearing that dove

Mourning her love over there 

Or the honor of this breeze

Assuring us there is

Still tenderness in this world

We few old monks

In our quiet choirs

With nothing but spring

Left to sing 

Bumbling Valentine

A small pile of sawdust

Left for me on the bricks below

The hole in the tree

A big black bumblebee 

Has carved to fit

Where it can nest 

But I'm the one

Bumbling about the yard

Sweeping it up

Watching it return 

So loaded with pollen

From working all day

In its gardens of glory

Leaving me embarrassed 

Sweeping the dust

With nothing to say 

 

Remember This Valentine

If your body becomes a cloud

As it will one day

Mingling and dissolving

In the hierarchy of air

If your soul becomes a star

Bundled along with other lights

Hurrying through the dark

I'll still be able to pick you out

And if your spirit has time 

In its celestial schedule 

To visit me now and then

You'll find nothing has changed

The old table still awaits us

Your bread my wine 

To Feel It Valentine

If light creates

The eyes to see it 

And sound the ears

To hear it does love

Create the heart

To feel it and air

The thoughts to think it

And longing the blood

Take up its course

In the willful body

Where life comes and goes

Always pressing forward

This delight in making things

This creation without end 

Returning Valentine

The white butterfly returns

The holy ghost in my yard

Checking and blessing things

I didn't know it could be so small

You must flutter before you fly

If you want to follow me

You must be cheerful

And not surrender

To any passing flower

Frail as a beating heart

Letting the breeze be your body

The sunlight breath you in and out

You must have the strength

To pull the whole spring after you

And cast out every doubt 

Evil's Valentine

The thing about evil is

It isn't even practical 

It whirls around and around

In ever-widening circles

Until it snaps in upon itself

And another day breaks through

Does the darkness hate the light

More than the light loves the darkness

Incomprehensible stars 

And yet they persist

Goodness is a fairy story

A completely believable tale

About the dangers of love

And endings you can trust

Will lead you home again 

Brought Valentine

Death and birth

Only seem to be

Part of this earth

A body bestowed

A body removed

With varying times between

A curtain opens and you

Are pushed out onto a stage

And looked at by the whole world

Silent for your soliloquy

What beauty have you brought us

From that better world

Body after body

To feed this hungry earth 

Called Valentine

They call to say

Your mother's dead 

There is a bird

Singing in the yard

A little dying song

You both can hear

So raw and festive

You can't help

But sing along

The joyful dirge

Of her soul ascending

At the other end

Of the phone a song

With no words 

Whoever Valentine

I join hands with all those

Who are sitting somewhere in the world

Trying to write a poem

Though they might never

Call it that a few words

On a scrap of paper

Because something forgotten

Has come back to them

Overtaking them with joy

And they just have to write it down

Tell whoever finds this note

I surrendered here

I put everything at your feet

I await your glory 

Eager Valentine

If I think of each of us

Putting our daub of paint

On the moving canvas of today

Some beautiful some smudged

I start to think I understand

What the painter has in mind 

Filling in the same scene

Over and over again

Each one perfect in its way

But still something eludes him

Each one beginning as if

Nothing had come before

Earlier efforts stacked in the corners

Eager to sketch one more

This day of days 

 

The Rest Valentine

As usual they were hidden and left

For later scholars to exhume

The shattered mummy texts

Bodies risen from the dead 

Put into readable books

Of verses and stories 
They wanted us to keep

No idea of what

Would become of us

Reconstructing their lives

Here's how to make a fire

In your heart here's how

To sleep at night

All the truth of things

You'll ever need

Just fill m the rest 

All Along Valentine

I only imagine you

As you only imagine me 

Seen and half-seen

Some parts are missing 

I only know myself

As far as I'm becoming you

In the middle of this mystery

Who do you suspect

Has his hands on the wheel

As it's headed down this road

Seeking a deeper intimacy

Impatient for its time

When I to you am known 

Or was it you all along 

New Life Valentine

You are never missed by me

I take you everywhere I go

Though you have important things

To do in your new next life

And it feels selfish 

To worry about you 

How we're getting on

Living together in this

New intimacy and calm

Having broken through

Matter and time

Your voice in mine

Carrying me with you

Wherever you go 

Trust Me Valentine

A black cat I'm watching

Browsing grass in my yard

Then strolling off with an

"I don't trust you'

Look in its eye and I

Wouldn't either

Trust me I can't be trusted

Even to know my name

Or not drift off

Sinking into the ground

Or soaring off into the sky

When you come by my love

To hold me still

And still and stiller

In your trusting gaze

Leaving me amazed 

 

Or Else Valentine

Looking over today's agenda

Of unprecedented events

Emergencies emerging

Right on schedule

The world I am staring

At the world over there

Containing me as much

As I encompass it

I feel the basic smallness

Of us all might be

Our greatest gift

Our infancy requiring

Ever-caring gods

Or else we're lost 

Narcissist's Valentine

I've got to be careful

Not to become too much

Of a caricature of myself

An object in my own mind 

That unavoidable mirror-image

I carry around with me

Lost in self-reflection

And yet it's also true

I'm always thinking of you

Whoever you are 

We must find a way

To dissolve the world

Between us it is nothing

But a flimsy veil 

Waiting For Them To Bloom Valentine

When my cat died

After fourteen years

With our consent

The Vet sent me

A condolence card

And a packet of

Forget-me-not seeds

Little black holes

I planted in two pots

Enough memory to go around

If they push through

St. Francis has assured us

Of animals in heaven

When it all comes around again

They will ascend to human 

Endless Valentine

This morning's meditation

Should you care to accept it:

'Mind is always conversation'

There are always two at least

Two together endlessly talking

At first there was only one waiting

On a bench outside a hospital

Until someone comes along 

And all the talking stops

Silence listening for the sea

Time is the first to go

Then space trundles after 

Confirming your arrival 

Praise Valentine

To our masters

Time and the sun

To our midwife moon

Birthing stars

Which ones are ours

To all that sets them 

With such offhand precision

What's not to love

But how can it be

Taken and given back

My life my lord

After all these sins 

You're still at work on me

Still carrying me along 

Being Thought Valentine

Why thoughts fall into our brains

Makes me think of rain

Or snow falling softly

Some land with a thud

Rocks falling in the head

An avalanche of sorrow

Rushes past and then

The mother comes along

The mother of all thoughts

Who stares at me and dares me

To get up off that chair

To breath this morning's air

And be the thought you are 

Waking Early Valentine

He dreamed of a spring

Gushing out of the air

Hanging and flowing there

No earthly thing

It looked like lymph

Or watery blood

Running from a wound

Without a sound

Down and down

Until it couldn't be seen

Only stopping in pools

To rally the stars

To light and put out

The candle moon 

Wanted Valentine

I wanted to be able to sing

My heart out in that choir 

But I have no ear or throat

For what the keys require 

I wanted to be able to dance

For my lord but I could only

Flail my legs and arms about

Barely keeping my balance

I wanted to be able to add

And subtract remember

Without regret 

How to carry the one

Over to the dividend

But I could never sum it up

My answers all were ciphers 

Until Valentine

Up until Tertillian

A priest in Rome among 

The ghosts of Greece

(His head was full of statues)

We had no way of knowing

The very impossibility of it

Was what made it true

Changing everything forever 

Tertillian Tertillian

I love to say your name

You were the first to confess

The audacity of faith

What rises above all reason

The pure gift of grace 

While I Valentine

The angels in my yard

Do make lovely things

And it's true I gave them

Free rein inviting them in 

But what they've done

With the space I love while

I wasn't watching I find

Mildly overwhelming 

The agave has given birth

To three little ones the pampas 

Grass is shedding seeds

Mapping out the breeze 

Where these angels hitch a ride

Laughing at all the work they've made 

This Time Valentine

Ours is a slippery world

Hard to know

Where to take hold of it

But when we do find

Something or someone

To love more

Than ourselves

We hold on tightly

We can feel the mountains 

Around us and set up camp 

In a wide open space

This world slips away

All this time under it

This longing to be loved 

Sacred Valentine

I remember as a boy

Candles blessing my throat

A cross of ashes rubbed into

My third eye the taste

Of God coating my tongue 

My poor performance

As an altar boy sneaking

Wine in the sacristy 

The sins I couldn't confess

Lined up like a rosary

The kiss of peace

I was given to carry

And bury to rise again

Running toward it I see

All my life as planned 

Carried Valentine

A gray volcanic head

Rescued from the sea

I brought back to the desert

And set up at my gate

A hole cut out of it

In which a small

White shell has lodged

An eye that looks down

At me when I approach

Of a serpent tamed to stone

I carried back and lifted

Into place to meet

Its determined stare 

Each day as best I can 

Out Of Valentine

The clouds those gods

I hold in high esteem

Night and day passing over 

I think they carry joy

And sadness around

And out of this world

Continually wrestling

With the light or breezily

Sailing across the moon

But when they're gone

The sky is never bluer

The stars never brighter

We see what those gods

Have made glory

Out of sorrow 

Two Man Valentine

Van Eyck's stalwart Adam

Has the face of a man

You'd like to get to know

Nothing has happened 

To it yet except beauty

And he has no idea

What to with it or what

It has to do with him 

But with Raphael he's

Almost unapproachable

The eyes of the first innocence

Ready to give itself away

How else can love be known 

My Sins Valentine

I have gotten my sins down 

To a manageable level

I like to think

Except for the ones

I've forgotten

Who come back to me

When I stay open

To receive them

We exchange 

Hurt feelings 

And promise to do better 

Even the unforgivable ones 

Still hold some hope

Of a better way 

My Valentine

I went to our meeting-place

But my love was not there

I sang and danced anyway

I walked home in the rain

And was seventeen again

Strange how one body

Never feels enough 

Half a love is no love

If you are old you find out

What love starts out to be

The only thing that's free

Freely given freely taken 

Who would rob love of its kiss

Given and given back

Will never be my valentine 

Behind It Valentine

Among the ones who know

What's really going on

Because they are behind it

At the highest levels of secrecy 

There is a library in a cloud

Where the names of all the innocent

And the guilty are slowly

Being unredacted as they pass 

From earth to heaven while there

In the harbors of the moon

In the courts of mercy

Others are given back their souls

And sent off to try again

To find their secret selves

In this transparent world 

To My Father Better Late Valentine

Between who he was

And who I was

Nothing in common

To talk about

The fact is we didn't

Like one another much

But refused to show it

As if it could be hidden

But still you were the one

Who carried me

Into this world

Put me here

To love you

Despite myself 

Led Down Valentine

Heaven is miniature on earth

Except everything's reversed

Seraphic mountains holding it up

The dusty feet of angels

Filtering down and at their core

They burn and burn alike

And we are all led down

To the brink of that cauldron

To swim in the fires of love

Only increasing what it consumes

Heaven assumes a human scale

Vast continents and oceans take on

A habitable form where love 

Is always losing until it wins

Somebody's Valentine

When you come to a formal garden

You know somebody's been there

Trying to straighten things out 

When you come to a formula

Or theorem you know somebody's

Been trying to write it all down

The parts that fit together

Or must be put together

We feel if we just understand 

Lifting a corner of the page

Of all that can be known

Then maybe peace would come

The peace we are promised

Beyond understanding here and now 

Brief Encounter Valentine

Right up in my face

A hummingbird rose I froze

And hurriedly tried to explain

I am no flower yet

Then what are you doing here

It wanted to know 

Carefully drilling the air

A little breeze on my cheeks

Well I was hoping you would tell me

How you manage the light

My little I come back trust me

I'm working on some nectar 

A few drops of sweetness

I have saved now gone 

Fearless Valentine

Yesterday I was lucky enough

To meet a brilliant mathematician

Who also happened to be

A beautiful human being 

A wife and mother a professor

I can report she took

A fearless attitude toward

The authority of numbers

When they tried to carry her

Too far from the practical

Consequences of their actions

She could sense the scale

Of the world living behind them

For which they are mere shadows

Of great beings left behind

We might follow to the sum 

Save Your Tickets Valentine

This morning I counted on my fingers

Fifteen different cover songs

From that single thieving bird

It was his first concert

Of the season after a long hiatus

The heartbreak you know

Of losing his mate

He returns to the stage 

Triumphant and chastened

Unapologetic and serene

They may not be my songs I sing

The ones I've saved for you

That break and mend your heart

It's just I sing them better than anyone

When I come back each year 

Over Valentine

Four amaryllis in a pot

I've saved from year to year

Timed to bloom at Easter

And they sometimes make it 

Opening in sequence

From red to pink to white

If sun and moon agree

Let's agree flowers appear

Out of a neighboring world

They really aren't from here

And yet they insist and insist

On coming back every year

Proof of paradise I guess 

The joy of blooming 

Over and over again

Must Be Valentine

What if the boy I was

Just happened to bump into

The man I've become

Him fifteen me eighty

It was a long walk to school

And often he didn't make it

So it could have happened

In some art gallery or riding

A streetcar to the end of the line 

Swallowed up in some book

Missing his stop again 

Me asking what are you reading 

Him glancing up from the pages 

What must be our life my friend 

Still Valentine

We can feel the will of the world

In the rivers and the creeks

And the great oceans

Pondering our fates

Aren't we all Magellans at heart 

Crafty our rigging creaking

As we inch toward some horizon 

What if everyone in the world

Became a sailor again

Islanders in the sea

Of the will of the world 

And still hovering out there

The real world

Waiting to be found 

February Flowers Valentine

Is the light every morning

Not a kind of speech

A language that keeps evolving

In the mouths of gods

Arguing with one another

About the way forward

Where to place the darkness 

For maximum effect 

Assembling themselves every

Morning for the great procession 

Into and up over their little

Seedling earth even to here

My waiting yard of weeds

And just down the street

A blazing bed of poppies

Like an eternal flame

Saying your name 

Figuring It Out Valentine

I think that time is

Our only real problem

How to penetrate the puzzle of how

To let it use us wisely

There's just so much of it

To account for

So much medicine

And mathematics

To be applied and adjusted 

While everything

Dances around

The way it does

And how when love

Comes into the picture

Time matters less and less

And more and more

In the same moment

And we are left together

To figure it out alone 

Snow Moon Eve Valentine

I feel how you can also feel

How strong fragility can be

Carrying the beautiful bowl

Of your life through

The crowded streets 

A grown child

How it all depends on

The most delicate operations 

Bodies flowing through bodies

With the dexterity of stars

Each I in its orbit

I know how you also know

The loneliness of our companionship

Calling out to one another

Planning where to meet sometime 

And have a glass of wine 

And gaze out on the ocean 

More Valentine

The more I sit here

It seems the less I know

Pictures come and go

But nothing sticks 

My brain is the banging door

Of an abandoned farmhouse

Somewhere in the hills

Of Uruk or Slovenia 

The more I sit here

It seems the more I get

Taken out of myself

Piece by piece slowly

So close I come to letting

The world completely replace me

And I can finally stand

And let the sun embrace me

As only the sun can 

This Day Valentine

Between two round clouds

A large X in the sky

As if it would delete the day

Draw a line right through it

Before it even gets started

But by noon the sun

Leaves not a doubt

In the blue flying by 

That this day has come

To be what a day can be

When it pulls itself together 

Sweeping through mountains

Death-defying deserts

Coming to rest in your hands 

For Your Birthday Valentine

Old age is given

To remember our sins

The done and not done

To go down to where

The mothers prepare

To gather us in 

But not yet not yet

Old age grows greedier

For life than it has ever been

Let me have 

I pray each night

Just one more morning

As a body on the earth

Holding your body near 

Invited Valentine

At the gate

Two guards wait

But you have brought

Your invitation

Which they inspect

And mutter over

You can hear the music

Coming from the mansion

Behind the hill 

While you wait

To be weighed 

And found wanting

Sent back to sleep

Under the stairs

Or else received

Swept into the grand hall

One among that silent crowd

Waiting to receive the Lord 

 

On His Feast Day Valentine

The secret of St. Paul

Who revealed the secret 

Along with his flair for words

And the music of his speech

Was his willingness to travel

To wander the sea without a home

Think of the kind of thinking

He could do hunched in the prow

Of some ship searching the horizon

In calm and in storms

Asleep or in conversation

With the Lord his companion 

What he would write

When he got there

If it would be understood

I wonder how many of his letters

Went astray like the ones

He wrote to us still 

Arriving still unread 

 

Goodbye At The Vet's Valentine

She was the cat

That came to dinner

And stayed for breakfast

For fourteen years

So we fed her though

She never let us touch

Her claws always at the ready

What could we do

We were her prisoners

When it got colder we

Converted an ice chest

Into a heated cabin for her

Lined with old pajamas

At some point she became

A professor of humility

At the local university

At least that was her story

She just wanted to be loved

And still be wild and free

So we loved her as if

We ever had a choice 

Enclosed Valentine

Noted this morning

Every few seconds

A drop of water falls

From the corner of 

The roof my heaven

Distilled from the cold

Night meeting the sun-

Warmed air I suppose

Since there's been no rain

A few clear drops falling

But not so fast I can't

Catch my own true likeness

There for a moment enclosed

Staring back at me

Holding the sun as it falls 

One Heart Valentine

It only takes one human heart

To account for the whole world

Everything necessary is there

To explain how it all

Got started in the foundries 

Of the gods how to wrap

A flame in streams of iron

Folding and folding it over

Pounding and pounding it

Plunging it into the water

Until it sings on its own 

As the earth feeds our hearts

So our hearts feed the earth

We re-gift what we receive

I trade my heart for yours

Who knew these dying leaves

Were plotting another flower 

I Almost Make it Valentine

A child singing in the refrigerator

The sound of me trying to breath 

I almost make to the last notes 

Before the coughing craters the song

It's as if my lungs are rejecting

Earthly air for some stronger stuff

So the more I breath it in

The more it chokes me out

By the end of the week

I'm completely wrung out

Waiting for the medicine to kick in

Laying here listening to the wind 

Who knew you could make it back

On the music of passing birds 

Epiphany Valentine

Mostly sick through the Holy Nights

Barely able to stay awake 

I was given a series of dreams 

Called 'The Science of Manipulation'

Anecdotes and instructions on how

Even intelligent people can be

Used and played to some end

In personal and professional situations

Painful to watch go on so long

And always come to such sorrow

In the very last classes

You were tested on the strength

Of the cleverness of your lies 

And failed if you believed a single one