Good Friday Valentine

Imagine you would have to die

This kind of dying surely

Among all deaths the worst

The most soul-shattering merely

To observe from a distance

It going on as in a story

That haunts the earth

You don't have to believe a thing

Not to be overcome by it

Even if you prefer historical fiction

Or your own old religion of self

There's still something unavoidably

Tragic and moving and central

About this story if you can feel

Anything at all

In the Season of Sorrow Valentine

It's unlikely they would build a nest

In so vulnerable a place but I watched

Them take a clump of cat's hair

Laying on the grass and tease it

Carefully between three twigs

On the lowest dead branch of a tree

Of heaven and weave a web from it

Discarding pieces that wouldn't fit

Coming and going with new supplies

I wanted to warn them not to stay

But I knew they wouldn't listen to me

What could I say about spring

They didn't already believe

Building its tender necessity

 

All Night Run Valentine

I've fallen behind

But I'm catching up

My feet hitting the ground

My heart picking up speed

But the end keeps shifting

And the hills keep drifting

And I'm a hundred miles from town

And now it's starting to snow

I'm burning and freezing

I'm crying and laughing

But the wind keeps pushing me on

And slowly I'm leaving my body behind

Outdistancing all I know

And crashing through the dawn

Cuneiform Valentine

You must think of it as a new encounter

Though you've done it many times before

You must hold it in your hands

Like an infant or a clay tablet

From five thousand years ago

When death comes to honor you

And shake your trembling hand

With a grip that won't let go

As when Gilgamesh met Enkidu

And they wrestled in the sand

You must live on with your lost friend death

Something that can only happen on earth

This holding on and letting go

This long labor of birth

Palm Valentine

It's always Palm Sunday

In the palms along the beach

It's always the arrival of the king

Where the waves crowd in and bow

Where angelic death passes over us

And the Buddha comes ashore

All the way from Mars or the Azores

Go get me a turtle he shouts

So I can ride in with him

This glorious wind

Sweeping in from the south

This light that glitters in the palms

These hosannas of the gulls

This sting of salt in my mouth

Daring Valentine

Every night while I'm asleep

My friend and I sit down to weep

And laugh and tell our stories

Of what almost happened and what did

He talks in pictures of the other life

We lived the day before and what

New nursery rhymes he's sketching

From the indications of the stars

For our next birth that's coming

Shortly in the morning

He writes down my instructions

And some things to take along

In a code we share in invisible ink

And then leaves me to it if I dare

Civilized Valentine

The smell of felled trees

Wafts on this morning's breeze

Two great pines that stood on our street

Crashing to the ground from sixty feet

Of dangerous dead wood

The last of a forest that stood

Outnumbered by civilized homes

And what took thirty years to crown

In thirty minutes was gone

Leaving us staring at the stumps

Inhaling the scent and the dust

And suddenly sensing around us

Quietly creeping toward their return

The rustling of needles and cones

Closer Valentine

The cat and I sit and watch

The brave red finch on the fresh-cut lawn

Feasting on the fallen dandelion seeds

Kitty can almost taste it and I

Who feel responsible for both

The animal who hungers for me

And the indifferent cautious bird 

One glaring at the other

One daring to stray near

Wonder how close we might get today

To some Franciscan kind of glory

Bird perched on my shoulder

Cat curled in my lap

Bird chirping some story

Cat taking a nap

At Sea Valentine

Fishing in the ocean of the sky

I cast the line of my eye

And watch the minnows passing by

And the great whales breach

Out there where the horizon creaks

Like the hull of an old ship

Or a sail in irons flapping about

It's a seafaring kind of sky

The sun like a dripping anchor

And the people waving on the shore

Slipping from sight on the open sea

The blue above and the blue below

And I don't know if I'm captive

Or captain or where we go

Brief History of Love Valentine

Do you remember from school

Fleur et Blancheflor and Mother Goose

How it started a whole new tapestry

For love in 11th century Europe just

Think of unicorns or Bernard's crusades

Or Percival in the forgotten forest

Until it all culminates in St. Hamlet

Where love drives love crazy

But who could follow such stories 

What I remember is walking eagerly

Five miles to school with the ass

Out of my pants as my father put it

You had me at five unending love

Freed me to be your slave

Matter Doesn't Matter Valentine

When the front door of death

Springs open or I fall

Under the axe of my time

Or when I'm shot in the woods

And tossed into the ocean

To go on drifting for days

Or when I'm carried out on a stretcher

And slipped into a plastic bag

Or when I slowly suffocate

Unable to remember our names

Or gratefully my heart just stops

And they find me slumped in my chair

However it happens it doesn't matter

I'll still be here waiting for you

Falls Valentine

I told my two friends

This couple I love

To go to Niagara Falls

They needed a break

From the world I said

They have barrels there

You can buy to sail

Over the falls or

You can ferry under

And into the thunder

And not hear a word you say

Holding on to your dear life

Which is why married people

Are drawn there to let it all go

Alone Valentine

In my 115th life I finally realized

This was at the change of moons

That the further into this world

I get the more difficult

It is to leave it

And the more contented I become

The more grateful I feel

Just trying to be as beautiful and sane

As any flower confronted

By my dreams which seem

The whole purpose of spring

Silly as tulips alive in late snow
For this alone I would return

To stand among them in the sun

Unnatural Valentine

The thing about nature

Which has always seemed

Otherworldly to me a dream

Is that it keeps repeating

Itself over and over again

Like a skipping heart-beat

Stuck in the middle of the song

So I guess hawks were born and the larks

Of reason the old logical crows

Who are still in charge of time

Who come to rule the eagles above the bay

Who give back to the sky a sense

Of some integrity at least

As it passes us by

No Use Valentine

If I were you

Hardly possible

As if that weren't

Already true

I'd say to me

Come closer let me

Breathe into you

Your other life

The one you gave me

It's no use

I knew it was you

Life with your way

Of knowing come closer

And pass through

I was always you

Qumran Valentine

Into the hidden jars of memory

I reach my cautious hand

And pull out shards and broken words

Lucky and unlucky numbers

Leftover pieces of unfinished puzzles

And there at the very bottom find

A small envelope of yellow seeds

Of some flower I've forgotten

The name of but the fragrance

Of that day remains plain

Spilling into my waiting palm

Carried carefully to some ground

I've saved some light I've made

Where the beginning is found

Available Valentine

What becomes available to us as humans

Bread and water light and air

What is given and taken away

Sight and hearing touch and taste

What waves back what flutters past

What sojourns on the moon

Playing in the traffic of the planets

And now this vacation in the sun

To relax in heaven for a while

Glancing at the ocean of the future

And maybe a morning swim with you

And then whatever becomes available

To us as tragic warriors of the earth

Bound by the gravity of love

March Valentine

I can only go around the yard

Picking up pieces of the world

It's so unfair of me

To compare one thing

To any other each stick

Is so unique soaked with rain

As if it would sprout again

If shoved into the ground

By the right hands

Isn't this all a tired gardener wants

The saucy poppies

Roaming the streets

The jonquils in drifts

For the deer to eat

Gleaming Valentine

Holding your photograph

I've used a device

To stop time to hold

You still painting you

Wasn't enough no

You really did look

Like that not someone's

Art work project

Though posed not smiling quite

The stillness before this stillness

The camera put you in

A firefly in a bottle

Proving you still gleam

And are mine

Even in Toronto Valentine

Apparently I had decided to arrive

Just at the high-point of the war

When they were burning the bodies

Of former generations overseas

Later from under my desk

I watched the bomb

Slowly enter my brain

What did it want

Seemed beyond my comprehension

We were just children craving

To get back to our games

But I had the sense

This had all happened before

And the clear apprehension

Something was terribly wrong

One Thing Left Valentine

Finally his melancholia dissolved

Into a deep reverence for all lost things

The phlegma of his younger days

Resolved his stubborn heart

Into a patient steady beating

So he could walk the world

With sanguine blood-shot eyes

Crying out in tender anger

You who would never

Abandon me come near

I have done what you have asked me

But there is one thing left to do

Which I alone invented

From all you taught me

About planting seeds 

And shearing sheep

Really Valentine

Little egocentric earth

You are alone

In the universe

You think

But you're the one

Who rises and sets

As the sun's first star

Yes you're the genius

Of the lot the gods'

Best hope into which

They've poured

Their last red drop

No really you yes

You're the one

They have selected

Temporary Valentine

Increasingly I'm able to imagine

A bright light at my back

Slowly enveloping me

So I can see the pitch darkness

It throws in front of me

Into which I'm passing

As into a million stars

I could be just standing here

With no way to tell you

If I didn't know you feel it too

Temporary as birds

Some eternity has touched

Dear Valentine

To The Pleasant Clinic I drove

To get my second shot but got

A little lost at first I crawled

Around the mall feeling the disaster

Of so many deaths circling until

I found the right line of cars

Pouring slowly through

The cheerful aides and doctor

Who asked where do you want it dear

She called me dear

As the needle plunged

A little love against

so much fear

Did I Valentine

Did I take a rain-check on the world

Did I stumble through the suffering and joy

The most amazing thing on earth

That it still goes on even when

I'm not paying much attention

Did I try to change the subject

When the question of love came up

So you hardly ever noticed

It just happens to be raining today

I noticed that you noticed me

Because I was raining too

But the rain has somewhere else to go

Having blurred our faces

Having from our smiles

Erased all traces

Bedtime Valentine

Maybe I'm forgetting to say

My prayers because

I'm forgetting my prayers

What was I praying for

But the privilege to pray

More noble on my knees

In the lost kingdom of childhood

When I could say bless Mommy

And Daddy and I could solve

Their sadness with a kiss

If you would let me Lord

If I could only trust you

Would never leave me

Unless I left you first

Listening Holds Everything Together Valentine

Listening to my listening 

I separate myself

Into I and me

But there is always

A third we are

Weaving together

Not me but the I

In me this listening

Like a forest lifting

Out of myself

Don't you hear

That faint pounding

On the door

Of your heart

Desert Valentine

Me a rookie in love

You a Rilke in sex

I sit on the floor

At your feet no more

I have founded

A school of my own

To have come after you

Saved me from myself

And from Frank O'Hara

So I owe you a lot

Forgive me if I love

The desert fathers

The old voices now I'm older

Let my cane wither

Into a new flower

Spring Valentine

Pegasus and Satyr

Her two English pugs

Would trot to town with her

To fetch the Sunday paper

And sit and read it in the sun

Over coffee and marmalade

She made the old seem young

Who stood to lose their sight

And left her reverently alone

In that deserted town

Blooming like the cereus at night

So the moths would come

And fertilize her womb

With a trillion stars

See now Horatio she comes

Sophie von Kuhn's Valentine

She called herself Sophie

But her first name was Christiane

And her last name means bold

At about the same age Mary reached

When she collapsed at the angel's feet

Feeling the I come into her

Little suffering Sophie died

Announcement of a similar kind

Thrilled through her willing blood

So he with whom nothing happened

Could enter the darkness of her love

And sing like John the Baptist

Christening her alive or like Raphael

All night painting his brave Madonnas

L's and A's Valentine

When I looked up at the stucco wall

I saw two faces etched by the trowel

Of some unaware worker's hand

Hurried scrawls at the end

Of a long and sweaty afternoon

I couldn't immediately fish them out

From the swirling throbbing lines

But then at once they both appeared

One an old man's fiery gaze

One eye open and the other shut

As if he saw both worlds at once

His wild hair streaming in a frozen wind

The other in profile obviously young

Who looked about to scream or fly

Into the pavement of the sky

Incarnating Valentine

If you've never been deeply amused

You'll never be deeply frightened

If you've never been deeply confused

You'll never be deeply enlightened

Nothing is colder than the desert at night

Nothing hotter during the day

One drives me deeper into the ground

While the other wafts me away

I planted a tree on your birthday

And shook your ashes into the earth

Around it and sprinkled it

With water from a holy spring

One day with juicy oranges

You'll fill my mouth again

Getting There

When you get there you forget

What you came for and must

Go back retracing your steps

And half-way there recalling

What it was and turning back

You were almost there the first time

All this only took seventy years

Until you noticed you'd been

Doing this your whole life

Either retrograde or direct

Long since you became a star

Harnessed to your orbit

Shepherding the space around you

The light you went back to seek

What I Know Valentine

I know you smile and refuse

My relentless optimism you my joy

In the face of so many disasters

Ours and the world's incompetence

Whether the history of sin will win

Over the brief stories of love

When it comes to David and Goliath

The giant afraid of his shadow

And the boy who becomes a king

The true history is written

By deeds of service rendered

By kings and queens

Who know they are

Kings and queens

Verdin's Valentine

Two Verdins come to harvest

The dandelion seeds

Light enough to land

On the tall stems

Heavy enough to tip

Them over spilling

Them on the grass

Where they are easier

To reach is that

Where they get their color

Pale greenish-yellow breasts

From the dandelion flower

Barely an hour my wonder

A thread of the world unwove

 

Its Valentine

One wants it

To stabilize

At perfect

Even as it

Never is

But almost

Borrowing perfection

If it has 

A source

You reach it

And it touches

You back

You're it

A Long Sentence Valentine

When the sun at last arrested me

And took me into custody

I knew I would have to confess

I was that child who did

Those things I shot the tree

But not the bird I swear

How I ravished your world

Over and over I was taken down

Strangely always protected

By friends I didn't trust

Was it wrong to have always

Counted on you to have known

From the beginning you

Would be there at at the end

Elemental Valentine

We sleep through the summers

So we can be awake in the winters

Our dreams are like springs and falls

Wind and rain remembered visitors

When the snow covers us all

And we wake up in the middle of the earth

In the mineral light of our souls

Where the seeds are stirring

Having buried the sun

We want to be there

At the very beginning

Where life enters matter

And matter gives up its life

We long to lend a hand

Dante's Valentine

The universe escapes me

I escape into the universe

It's such a beautiful day

And I am taking you with me

Do we have something better to do

Than feel how the darkness

Obliterates us how the stars

Call out to us clearly

Preparing us for something

Returning us to the earth

Each morning safely

Now we know we are immortal

And have only to work out

The mortal part

There Valentine

Tips of icebergs

Tips of mountain tops

Tips of your fingers

The reaching never stops

Eyes touch eyes

There on the tip of your eye

You have something hold still

That cannot see itself

Unless in the mirror of you

An image appears

As I might have been

Or soon would be

If love would save me

Or I save you

Love Despite Love Valentine

Two eyes on the outer world

And one eye on the inner

I go back and forth

Trying to bring them together

But often they just collide

And I go careening about

Both worlds like snow does

Bursting from a tree in the sun

Cascades sifting down

In a soft wind

Glittering like grace

And suddenly the veil

Of the veil is lifted

And I can see your face

Warm Ashes Valentine

I feast before I fast

I know the flesh won't last

But first the flame and then

The ash a bird's wings stirring

A table a clock a skull

I have placed myself upon

The altar of my sins

Drunk the wine and bread

And confessed your glory

As unworthy as I'm sorry

While you were always 

Just waiting here inside

Warmly to receive me

Only Those Who Love Are Free Valentine (for Mary)

On the occasion of my graduation

From serf to slave

I felt ashamed of my freedom

Perceiving how only those who love

Are free and this sat me down

It was a cumulative apprehension

Of revolutionary dimensions

And being toward dawn already leaning

I woke up in the dream of the world

In the dream of myself

And you were there mingling

Some party in a basement

Both keeping our distance

Or over coffee fast and furious

The one who knew this too

What Is Good Valentine

It's good that when I was young

I fed myself on books and lakes

So I'd have them to come back to

The ending of the mind

Only the beginning can tell

The first half of my life

Finishing my former life

Before I could begin this one

Trying to be good at something

Which is both a science

And an art waiting

For beauty to call

And hear you say

This is good this is good

Valentine's Valentine

Even love has a birthday

Is memorialized with flowers

And a secret wish

Refusing to tell its age

Hurrying to blow out the candles

And open its gifts

Away or toward us

Love seems always moving

In any event adrift afraid

Until it reminds us

Just when we'd forgotten it

Today's my birthday

Do you even remember my name

Human Valentine

I love how some words widen out

To include even their opposite meaning

There's something generous in that

Or to become a word of one

Repeated letter w-w-w-w

Or l-l-l the names of the upper gods

That heal the lips that speak them

What word would you use

To describe a word

That doesn't want to be a word

That refuses pronunciation 

The self-contradictory word

Unspeakable doesn't quite say it

Caller ID Valentine

When I hear the phone's trill

I always hope it's Jess or Joan

Not 'Name Unavailable'

And never the blank 'Unknown'

Or someone who politely

Just wants to leave a message

About something I don't really

Need to know right now

A death announcement

Or a dental appointment

I need to re-schedule

I only pick up for the names

I love and know

Betweren Valentine

I'll have to clean the birdbath

If I expect that flicker to return

Or these sparrows to be grateful

As I want them to feel

I try to be to them

And the plants in whose presence

I take my short walks

Who try to soothe me

With their long vowels 

Inventing new languages every day

I'll have to learn to speak

If I expect them to be heard

Something passes between us

A sigh and a living word

All the Means Valentine

What if you had all

The means of rejoicing

But you did not rejoice

Why would you refuse

The choice of bliss

Would you not rejoice

Would you find some excuse

Make up some story

You had to get back to work

Something just came up

Some sadness that demands

Your immediate attention

And you'll call me later

Next Valentine

Biography is brief

But long is life

To be continued always

Never the end though some

Last longer than others

Where does their unused portion go

Their unlived life

I'd like to know

Like something being given up

So someone else

Could have it

And carry it further

To the next and the next

Called Back Valentine

I confused a calling

With a means of escape

Opportunities don't only

Attract they compel 

So I ran all the way back

To the 12th century 

Just to catch up a little

Only to read in the stars

I had to keep going back

To the 9th and the 3rd

Until I'd come upon

A resurrection

Where I could stop

And heal

Sophie's Valentine

She sits a shadow in the darkness

With light around her like a halo

So we can just see the outline

Of her head bent to the pictures

She's drawing lonely as a scribe

Writing down the words of the gods

Reflecting them back to us

Until knowing becomes doing

She has the courage to be humble

Taking dictation as if she

Weren't the source of all wisdom

The dark one in the mirror

Who is drawing us all

Ready Valentine

A poem should convince you

Of its need to be a poem

And make you believe

In poetry even if only for

The few seconds it lasts

You are stung by something

Exotic like what does language want

So much preparation has gone

Into creating it and speaking it

You have to be ready

At a moment's notice

To leave it all behind

Everything ends in a poem

Dove's Valentine

The dove is the harshest bird

Its sqwacks and its coos

One scolds me one soothes

I haven't a clue

Which can be counted on

Alarm or calm

When it sweeps through my yard

Peace coming and going

I try to focus on the rhythm

Over longer and longer

Periods of time

Until there could only be

This one dove coming

And going for now

Just Because Valentine

Just because god is dead

Doesn't mean he's gone away

Your hate and love are fastened to him

Whatever you call father

Even if you never knew him

God is the absent umbrella father

Of whom you are ashamed

A child you wind up rejecting

Never knowing when he'll show up

Wanting money or just to hold you

Where did you come from father

We would not have been friends as kids

You with your stories and me with my sins

Taking the Air Valentine

The pond is so silky in the sun

I can feel the fish and the feet

Of the ducks over there bobbing

Up and down cruising around

The baby carriages and the joggers

Heavy and slim trundling past

How everything is fastened safely

To the earth except the trees

Who keep reaching for the sky

As if under arrest by the clouds

Chased in and out of the sun

So much mayhem and magic up there

Until I see it's all just pictures

Passing through my mind of air

Fuller Valentine

I was marveling how the dead go on

Living in us a kind of further life

We feel diminished by the loss

Of something somehow more

A part of us we must imagine now

And grasp at them with our grief

Surprised how easily they could slip

Into the invisible world around

When there was so much love to live

What could be so urgent

They must leave us so bereft

Unless they wanted us to know

Our lives together are even fuller

Than any body could enclose

Asked Valentine

Can I ask you a favor

Even after how many years

As if you didn't know my answer

Just your way of changing the subject

So I would pause and wonder

If there was still something unknown

Between us like the exact

Date of our parting or

Could you do dinner tonight

The trivial and the solemn

Requests love makes

Of no one else but you

So go ahead and ask me

As if I could be true

Another Hovering Valentine

The bees are systematic

Mindful among the dandelions

A whole swathe of them

Sprung up after the rain

Which must look like

A field of sunflowers

To the ants passing below

Swaying in the breeze

But tallness is all relative

To your size and the bees

Can lift their weight in gold

While the dandelions plead

Take all of me if you please

Hovering Valentine

How can we come to a true conception

Until we allow for a pure perception

Just seeing what's there

In its perfecting standing still

And beholding it

Without judgment or fear

But how far back in time

Do you have to get

To sense it's all pictures

Both themselves and something else

Like a hovering cloud

Working through them

Through the small space of the present

Another pyramid of sand is falling

But if you look away a moment

You can almost hear it singing

Something to us

Sky Valentine

Could you say the birds

Condescend to the trees

Does that imply too much

Order to the sky too much clinging

The way it feels its way along

Part planned part searching

Part sealed part open

Don't you think the sky 

Is free to choose its own 

Armor and vestments

Or run naked into the ocean

The freedom that comes

From knowing how to travel

From life to life  

Today's Valentine

Whatever is left over from yesterday

I gather in my head in the sun

After it's been digested by my dreams

As if discovering they're naked fleeing

After my angel has brought me back

Awake and warm in my bed

A little shattered a little joyful

And I can start to resemble myself

And stand up to slip into today

Today how I missed you

And how marvelous I didn't 

Have to go looking for you again

Like a long-lost brother

Laden with gifts of light

Secret Valentine

The secret of my happiness

Is that it's not a secret

It doesn't depend

On being happy

All the time in fact

It has nothing to do

With time

It's more an imaginery

Friend who's always there

Sometimes we sit down together

So as not to be overwhelmed

He has so much wisdom

I can only listen and then

He tells the funniest jokes

Apocryphal Valentine

Was Abel not his brother's keeper

Was he not able to calm him down

Wasn't his goodness not responsible

In part for his brother's enmity

Why had he offended him 

Laughing at his silly drawings

Rejection leading to rejection

Who will have the upper hand

Cain had left to pursue his passions

It was Abel who went after him

And found him at last living alone

By the sea building another boat

They fought then and died together

In one another's arms

Out of Slavery Valentine

Only when I am free myself

Can I come back to free others

And I can only free myself

When I become my own master

How much of what we call heaven

Depends on what happens on earth

How much of what is immortal

Grows out of this mortal life

When I left the other world

And came here how many

Cheered me on and still

Stand by my side when I

Am beaten down how many

Are always offering their hands

Found Valentine

I'll tear this page out

When I finish writing it

But if you're reading this

It means I'm playing with you love

In honor of this ephemeral

Immortal day on which I

Wanted you to find these words

Not forgotten by their writer

Rediscovered by their reader

In some old book or drawer

Hardly enough space to express

My ripped-up love for you

And yet they do 

See I've put back all the pieces

Its Own Valentine

All wars are soul wars

The body and the spirit

Are already at peace

It's the soul that worries them

How will it take the body in hand

How will it respect the thinking

That goes on inside and outside it

The soul hears them sometimes

Arguing in the night about its future

They try to remember their own

Childhoods before and after

Their delicate child was born

And they had to stay together

For its sake until it's on its own

Rain Driving Valentine

At last cold January rains

Beat the earth back into shape

Some semblance of itself

Restoring a luster to the old

Colors of the world as if

They had a future

While dark ominous 

Clouds above us

Jostle with the sun

Dramatic but playful

The darkness so full of itself

And the light so empty

Until these drops of life

Pour down at last

Thelma's Valentine

Some questions just demand answers

And when they're given they're not wanted

Or they're received but not understood

To which answer you are 

The question some questions

To which you might have an answer

And others begging to be asked

The questions unsure they 

Want to marry their answers

And live separately together

And move on to love

Which just to feel and touch

Even for a few moments

Already asks so much

Rita's Valentine

Of course you will die in a poem

In the world of the poem

In the poem of the world

Of course you will dissolve

And become a question of when

You will appear again in the poem

Like a note in the music of the poem

A note that turns on itself

Struggling to betray the theme

Of the poem in the funeral home

The corpse of the poem laid out

In a simple pine coffin

Or shoved into the fire

Its bones coming back to you in a bag

Connected Valentine

Who am I and to whom

Am I speaking I would like

To speak to your manager

Not to complain but say

How much I appreciate

Having to wait in a long line

For such excellent service

It gave me time to think

How hard your day must be

I wondered what sustains you

What gives you hope in the world

Before we get disconnected

And I forget your name

Enough Valentine

One word used to be 

Enough for me ma or da 

But language immediately

Wanted to take over

And I struggled to speak up

For myself more and more

Using my words all they

Come down to all I have

But before words arrived

Back there before memory

Like battered survivors

Entrusted them to my care

One word was enough for me

As it will soon be enough again

Behind Valentine

Words come to light

Like extinct birds

On old scrolls

I shoo the cat

From my chair

And pour my eyes out

To feel the light

Left in the words

I want to meet

The scribes who wrote

On these bricks

Behind the words

I want to find

Their children's eyes

The first wisdom

That's Not On The Menu Valentine

Yes I like a little sauce

On my day it's no secret

Not bitter but spicy

I take it mild

But with a little bite to it

To clear the impossibilities away

I'll have the entree of clouds

I try to explain it to the waiter

How I like it cooked

But he just stares at you

As if he'd never seen anything

As beautiful and hungry before

My dinner guest death

Just sitting there and smiling

Every Day Valentine

A simple talent for light

Lifts itself to genius every day

When the sun comes up

The one persisting example

Of how it's done

Practicing and practicing

How to turn ore into gold

And gold into the musical

Structures of our lives as we drive

Through canyons to the ocean

Arriving at just the right moment

To watch it all fall apart again

Until the stars come to save us

And the moon carries us through

Past Lives Valentine

We lived on the lake

We lived in the woods

We lived at the end of the line

We gave birth

We figured it out

We grew friends

Like a small orchard

Where a few bear fruit

We did see the genius

Of small things

We were not fooled

By greatness or gardens

We could feel

How they suffered

To get that way

Your Basic Valentine

I assume your eyes

Are large enough

To see anything

And your arms 

Are long enough

To embrace everything

I might say or do

And that you're 

Not troubled

How one thing leads

To another life

That you understand

And still expect me

To understand you

Eyes Valentine

One eye on the earth

One eye on the stars

We try to marry them together

Mother and father

Arguing and welcoming

One another's gifts

As if we were born

Out of wedlock out of first love

The woman who goes home

To live with her mother

The father less remote when absent

Grown-up children who've

Come home to care for them or not

Their eyes now fixed on heaven

Invisible Valentine

I think that invisible force-field

Which draws us together

While it pushes us apart

That empty gulf between grief

And laughter called the heart

In the scientific dictionaries

Of mythological beasts

Was the first winged creature

To roam the earth alone

The evolution of a feeling

As in how many birds

Does take to make

Being fly over to being

New York Valentine

Wit and tact got mangled last night

Yet another hit and run a woman

Was seen in a great black coat

Walking the streets filling with snow

Who was brought in later for questioning

Who confessed yes she saw them

Earlier in the day in Chinatown

Sitting there solemn and gray

In her great black coat so the cops

Arrested her for minor depression

But her lawyer got her out

And took her back to her apartment

Full of books to save her

Precocious Valentine

When I was five and some

I walked to the lake alone

Across three busy streets

And a bridge over the tracks

And was later found

Playing on the sand

Where I had spent the day

Asking for food from strangers

Or when I needed something to drink

Convincing them my parents

Were just there down the beach

Was I dreaming or lying

It felt so free to be on my own

Making it up as I went along

But all I remember about that day

Besides the terror of my mother

Going on in the background

Was a long conversation with the lake

In which I learned you too were

In the world and I would find you

Shakespearean Valentine

Among evil's bad actors death is not one

Though it's been made to play the part

It's the adventures that lead up to it

Let's face it along the way

That we must want something for ourselves

As much as those who follow us

The empty stage is full of exits

And burgeoning with entrances

If in every death we die

In every life we are born

A sober ecstasy in the sense

That this contingency holds sway

Night following day.

Longing Valentine

Humanity is so positioned on the scale

That it receives the glory of a night

And of a day with willful precision 

Something clearly coherent at work

Especially where they coalesce

The mythic light and the sacred darkness

If you picture them as the actual beings

We know them to be the last

Reflections of a pair

Of brothers or sisters

Who go their separate ways

With their knives at twilight

And their kisses at dawn

How long can this go on

Longer Valentine

I will probably be late for heaven

I love the earth so much

It's where everything happens first

Like New York or Alexandria in the day

Surrounded by its mysteries and dramas

And so many things to read about

And to experience it all takes time

But there are no books or time in heaven

So one has to be read to like a child

Stories that give strength to growing bones

Until one feels the earth is turning a corner

And beginning its sure ascent

To becoming a star or a sun

And one just wants to stay with it

And be in its company a little longer

Poems Just Want To Be Prayers Valentine

Come now sun

Warm thou me

A night of jigsaw dreams

In which I'm awake amazed

And just stand there watching

The pieces clumsily at first

Put themselves together

I see I'm not just myself

But someone else who watches me

Whom I already am becoming

It's a scene of the Rockies

Or the Carpathians in spring

I was taking pictures of myself

It could be a desert or a lake

Crying Valentine

Today the dove's cry is a muffled caw

The crow's complaint what

The dove was forced to say

If you put the sounds of birds together

All over the world at once

Would it be an Aum

You would hear or the alarm

Going off on that last morning

I mean the rhetorical dove's

And the shiny articulate crow's cries

Who fly off in opposite directions

All their flights leading far away

Leaving us in the silence awake

With nothing but the possible to do

And only the impossible to do it with

Near-by Valentine

Breakfast this morning is watching

Three ring-necked doves crowding

The birdbath with their plumpness

Just outside my window and then

A helping of bread and juice

While I read your emailed dream

Chiding myself for too little

Water in the birdbath

Barely enough for a sip or two

But they as always seemed content

If not satisfied with my intention

And your near-by words of love

That always make me smile

Outlived Valentine

The only question is

Will we be rescued

Or are we already doomed

To be rescued again

Again and again

There's an invincibility

About life that can't

Be grasped by time

The only place

Death could survive

Death that delicate flower

Slowly growing extinct

Having outlived its usefulness

Rescued Valentine

If I sit out in the sun too long

Brooding over the sun's old songs

And I bake and I seethe

Until I become a flame

Please come get me

Please collect the feeble ash

Of my arms and put them

Around you still burning

To be touched again

Again and again

While love passes through

The guest of my heart

Who comes and goes

Refining me to gold

In his own sweet time

Now's Valentine

I resume the now in a shower

Of memories like a swimmer

Turning his head to breath

Before ducking back down

Into the wavy current

So more is lost than seen

In the forward motion

And the now become something snatched

From the surrounding sea of the past

As his arms propel his head ahead

And his feet emit dissolving circles

So the now becomes something

He swims toward suspended

Which he knows is there

Whenever he breaks the surface

And sees the next wave looming

The Elementals Singing to the Thrones Valentine

Come sit with me in the sunlight

And sense how the earth under our feet

Rays back its growing glow

From fires raging in its depths

How something moves between them

That intersects in us

Between the cold abstractions up there

And the burning at the stake down here

See how warmth as love's

First instinct was to build

A heart for it a home

And then come sit with me

In the shadows where the gods gather

To take another breath

And go on singing us their song

Epiphanous Valentine

Even if you think it's only a story

Wouldn't you need to ask yourself

Where such a story could come from

And what such a story contains

Even as a lexicographer of the mind

Or an absent member of the jury

You'd have to admit in the end

There is some magic here some light

But no point looking for causes

Let's just focus on effects

Does it change everything for you

Does it go straight to the bone

Does it raise you from the dead

Sounded Valentine

He did not hand her a letter

That happens in another story

But it was the same magic they wore

Those messengers of glory

To us who were only waiting

To be overwhelmed at last

By what we always wanted

Just to be loved so we

Ourselves could learn to speak

Its rugged language one day

Fluently with a feel for the vowels

And how the tongue rolls

In the mouth how the lips

Shape the meaningless sounds

Prologue in Heaven Valentine

In the beginning was Wisdom

And Wisdom was the mirror of God

And Wisdom was both uncreated

And yet created out of nothing

She did not create God

But was herself the image of God

In the process of creating all things

Among which was his first likeness

Through whom the world was given life

And the mirror was broken

And we became the scattered pieces

Which Wisdom is still gathering

But God did not look away

For she was the woman he mirrored

His gaze was fixed upon her

The beginning of all love

Tolstoyan Valentine

All good thinking is alike

But because it's a mixture of both

All bad thinking is different

I thought I swallowed a sharp

Piece of plastic I thought of it

Swimming around in my gut

While I was eating a piece of cake

I stared into the darkness

Of my imaginary death

Trying to compose myself

To console myself there was still

The sweetness of life in my mouth

And then you in the foreground

Holding up that little piece of plastic

Between your sweet fingers

Flowery Valentine

Whose preciosity

Is overcome only

By their sincerity

These flowers all flowers

Their impossibility

Their resurrection

Before dying and dying

Their necessary happenstance

Their staged insouciance

Coming right up to the edge

Of some immaculate conception

Of what reality can make

Out of a colorful imagination

Their implications

Needed Valentine

What is needed is the sun on Sunday

To rise above that churchly dome

Of clouds and fill this chair

Where I am waiting in the cold

Fading moonlight shadows

For my constellation to arrive

If I look through the dark earth

I can see it on the other side

Where summer has gone

But the past can only grow

What it plants as they sang

So I sit waiting for the sun

To fill me to the bone

Mute Valentine

One can speak frankly to a cat

Or a mirror or the open air

One can confess everything to a tree

And give it back its penance

But to you I bring the silence

Of my tamed excuses

One could have loved you more

One could not have

How can we both be true

When I'm the one

Who wronged you

No cat can say that

Or wall and still

You loved me back

Clairvoyant Valentine

I don't want

Second vision

So much as 

The first vision

Of you strolling

In a bee-line

Toward my mind

Though you were not

Aware of it

At the time

And I was 

Pretending along

That's what we do

Us lovers

We bring love

Into the world

We harvest it

And store it

For the winters

Moving On Valentine

Staring down the corridors of the future

With the sun behind me rising

So my shadow precedes me

Dodging in and out of other darknesses

Though all the paths lead far away

I still sense you coming toward me

My aimless wandering has not lost you

You invisible one who keeps finding me

Though I keep losing you I go on

Following the shadows of the past

I saw you once so I know you're there

Stars filled the trees the dream was real

Even if only for an instant

Your light illuminating me