Trying Valentine

At the high point of the day

When there are no shadows

At the low point of the night

When there is no light

At the brightest and the darkest times

When I sleep dreaming among the gods

Caught up in their creative whirl

Struggling to unravel their words

Or when I'm dazed by my daily tasks

Clearly seeing no way forward or back

Feeling scorched in my soul and blank

I stop for a second and try to imagine

What it's like to be nothing

And every living thing at the same time

What it's like to be a human being

Trapped in the darkness and free as the sun

A Kind of Ascension Valentine

Like a child picking at the dead

Sliced-open body of a frog

I turn and turn the past

Somewhere there must be a pond

And a whole summer waiting

As he extracts its lovely eye

And places it carefully on a slide

And peers down into the microscope

And senses it's still alive 

Not the eye only but what it sees

Looking up from the other end

A distant croaking of the heart

A ripple loosening the reeds

His first discovery of his part

What Is an Electron Valentine

Between panic and exultation

Between self-pity and cold reason

In that little mediating space

Between light and matter

I am listening to someone drilling down

Hammering on steel and wood

Hoping to pound me into the ground

Thank God he stops once in a while

To catch our breath and change position

And immediately some sun absorbs me

Turns me into a glimmering cloud

Indifferent to all above and below

Until I waver between light and darkness

Holding them both at bay or not

And Then Valentine

And then you closed the book 

On me so I missed the remaining

Revealing chapters of your story

Though I heard you went to Turkey

And taught the children of refugees

And once as in the movies

The back of your head and bearing

Made me embarrass myself

With a stranger on a busy street

Sure it was you sorry it wasn't

Leaving me standing there shaken

With its jolt of joy and grief

That it was possible to touch so deep

And then it simply disappear

Blue Valentine

When I look out from my little mind

My narrow window on the world

This morning awake in my leafy yard

Alone among my many troubles

I see there's not a cloud in the sky

They've all fallen to the ground

And left behind this purest blue

Full of promise and reassurance

Enough to make me want to cry

And then I see seven angels land

In my ancient pomegranate tree

And one who slowly descends to me

And stretches out his hand and says

Here brother take and eat

Dodie's Valentine

You were my first taste of love

Even before I could say the word

You chased me in the grass

And we fell down laughing

It took me a while to see you

As a person with your own life

Things that had nothing to do with me

You were my first experience of alone

And separate from everything else

I remember your modest dignity walking

Through the city streets with me

Holding my timid hand

When you were my Athena

And I was your little man

Anniversary of Your Death Valentine

This equality of the sun

This freedom of the air

This sisterhood of the trees 

Why can't we have that too

Why can't we be more like water

And read what the gods have written

In mists and rain and dew

How can we have good things

And not want to be

Good ourselves or at least

Better than our machines

I think it's simply because

We still believe in death

Are still convinced it's true

Whitsun Valentine

The crooked shadow of a trill

Though its quick flight is straight

But otherwise the yard is still

Hypnotized by the heat 

Earlier before you arrived

The false hope of a cool breeze

Ambled through the blue leaves

A momentary retrieve

But now it's real hell we meet

The quiet at the center of a flame

In which we are slowly being consumed

Through the motionless afternoon

So what's left of us by nightfall

Is just the crackling of the stars

Friendly Valentine

My friend who tended sheep

My friend who wrote a starry book

My friend about to graduate

My friend crossed over two years now

My friend who wrote to me out of the blue

My friend the apothecary of smiles

My friend the repairer of pets

My friend who went back to her home town

My friend climbing the ladder of lost hopes

My friend life and death all around me

My friend my next breath

My friend who is like a marriage

My friend who lowered the rope to save me

My friend who scatters my ashes

For You Valentine

What makes me quake

What keeps me awake

To stand before all I love 

And know what's at stake

When even my unworthiness seems

Shallow and fake

My love for my own sake

For all for me I can take

To feel your gaze drift toward me

Whether I'm asleep or awake

Things I love people I love

The earnestness of children or a tree

That saves me from myself for you

Just as I'm about to break

To The Wedding Valentine

We must walk miles to the wedding

It won't come to us

But only if we get invited

By an angel we can trust

We must come to a clearing

In the woods hungry and unsure

And share our meal with a dove

A greedy crow pursues

We must lose our heads and hasten

Down a path we can't retrace

Until we finally reach the gate

And knocking enter the great domed room

Where the bride and groom await

We must have nothing left to give

But all our love

How Valentine

How do I find the feeling

That I'm going in my life

In the right direction toward

What is my deepest longing

With the light behind me

So the shadow of my hand

Writing these words

Falls across the page

A darkness I peer through

From which the words emerge

Suffering from being written down

Like prisoners filing out

Into the light and me among them

Just another word

Morning Truce Valentine

I'm not exactly in a hurry

Satan says and Wormwood

The novice angels stare back

From across the lake at them

Where their bright armies hide

Alert for the next right wave

Let's have breakfast first together

Down on the beach in the breeze

Comb through our treaties

The ones we'll keep and leave

Let our great general the sun

Tell us again the stories

Of when we were young and laughed

Off our quarrels by day's end

Building Stones Valentine

It may seem like a little stone

In the urgent stream of time

Our daily troubles among

So many other stones and boulders

But don't lose feeling for the current

The knots and weaving of the flow

How it idles in corners among minnows

Forced into sandbars and swamps

Heading for the falls and wide

Deep stretches through open fields

Leaving you speechless on the shore

This river feeds a million lakes of stars

And then passes into a million oceans

Which on closer inspection

Are themselves just stones

Summery Valentine

My aunts Molly Reet Tillie Nennie

And their older sister my mother Dodie

And Daddy Joe and wild uncle Buddy

And on the other side Frank and Bridget

Uncles Mike and Jack and Gerald

Hallie Anna and Moody

All gone now from my summers

And all their children my cousins

I never got to know now strangers

French Canadians and Irish immigrants

Who taught me the art of laughter

And showed me the elm trees then

Living among them and welcomed me

To their dark lakes in the north woods

And still join me in my journey

And wait for me to catch up

Finally Valentine

She told the kind chemist

What could be counted

Wasn't worth knowing

If the soul must be ignored

She shouted it from the back

Of the classroom when he

Was in the middle of a sentence

Amazement preceded muffled laughter

And then a pall descended

And everyone stood still

For a moment staring into space

It was a proud and tactless thing she did

But someone finally had to say it

Every Day Now Valentine

Plans cancelled lives ended

And a friend taking photos fell

Lay in pain on the ground alone

More than one broken bone

But somehow went on aiming

That phone and snapping

Each picture a cry for help

As her eyes faded from the sky

She was like the man left beaten

Waiting for the Samaritan to come

Or proud Saul thrown from his horse

The lightening of another hit-and-run

But how else can the spirit get through

If it not collide with you

Apocalyptic Valentine

I saw the world

Wore a thin disguise

Of many lives

Taken for granted

In the half-light of the full moon

I saw what looked like

My very own brain

Up there pondering

Trying to reflect the sun

I saw the sky between us

And the dark earth below

Sleeping under the stars

From there I could see

All the seals were broken

And the heavens come open

Right Here Valentine

Chasing my glasses

I found the secret

Of self-deception

It wasn't buried

Under some stones

The logs of an old ship

Or the bones of a lost city

They were where I left them

When I turned away

Slipping from one life

To another on the street

A blur of moving faces

Until I come back to yours

Right here all along

Morning Star's Valentine

A man who lived by dying

Regularly having to resuscitate 

Himself with trips to the lakes

Long train rides reading darkness

Who had to push his soul back down

When it would try to leave his body

But they were like playmates

His body and his soul

Rivals and allies

A man who died by living

Into the stillness of a deep affection

So in the end he became a child 

Again a light so bright

It brightened even heaven

Valentine in the Distance

How far from you the shore

If I were a rudderless ship

And you had a map

Of the waves and could chart

My exact location

In the delicate weaving

Of light and air

Or I could be a plane

Flying without instruments

And three hundred passengers

Looking out the windows

Into clouds and you were the one

Light I could see to safety

If I remember how to land

I'm Ready Valentine

I'm ready or not for you now

To drop into my mind all at once

To occupy all its rooms and hallways

With your burning presence

To walk out into its starry fields

Under the worrisome mountains

My mind the world for you

And I am obliterated and restored

And taken up by the one thought

For which my mind was made

A drop to hold the ocean of you

Ready or not for your heart

To start beating in me

Your breathe to breath me

Death's Wake Valentine

At death's wake

We all came to celebrate

But the more we drank

And the more we ate

The soberer we got

Finally death sat up in his coffin

And grinned an I'm sorry grin

It was all a ruse

To get you here

But I won't apologize

From the beginning

I told you the truth remember

But you wouldn't listen

All those times I nudged you awake

Grasping for life and limb

Aurora Valentine

On Heart Lake in a dark house

But if you boat out

To the darkest deepest spot

Which must at the same moment

Touch the highest most distant point

The midnight sky can reach

If you align your heart with them

As a dot equidistant shore to shore

You will feel the sunrise

On the other side of the world

Simply because you chose to

How the light of the sun

Passes through the earth

Penetrating everything until it comes

To you old grandmother freely

Sitting on water under the stars

Yes even to you some midnight

Terrible-Beautiful Valentine

This is the terrible-beautiful time

We need to feel most alive

The friendship of our angels

Their sturdiness and calm good sense

Especially if we don't believe in them

Going about their thankless tasks

As we toss and turn in agony

We need to lean into their love

For us those who suffer with us

Their ocean of understanding

About what it's all possibly for

Their long clear explanations

For our intractable natures

And for our goodness also

Which they nurse along

In the infancy of gods 

Two Way Valentine

Certain members of its species

Grow tall and slim in the sun

Sparse of leaves but with

Pale purple flowers in abundance

While other fellows of its kind

Spread in the shade around

The trunk of a tree alone

Thick with green but only

A few deep violet flowers show

Sometimes on warm afternoons

I feel its two colors must be a form

Of a consciousness of its survival

Whether to bear many and go on

Or settle for a few bright gems

Hoarded up for another time

Daily Valentine

It is after all this daily wonder

That is responsible for everything

The way it keeps widening out

One time a sky another a lake

Spell-bound alone in its power

Each thing with its distinct becoming

Something else going in

And out of time and space

The daily secret collisions with it

When I want to touch your face

Suddenly appearing in my mind

The daily eternities of trees

Climbing further and further up

Urged on by the stars to leap

One to One Valentine

About your neck I placed the noose

I wanted to be rid of you

Forgetting the soul is immortal

Upon your head I placed a crown

And we lived like David did

Among sheep and pomegranate trees

I sent that angel to help you unravel

The tired knots of shame

Through your kiss I came

To death's burial

To show you how it's done

If I ever had a child

It would be you

If I ever had a friend

Mona Replies to Her Onlookers Valentine

May you not to the moment of my smile

Ascribe only a mother's or a lover's wile

Or a woman scorned or compromised

Mounting her refusal of her time

Or any element of sad bemusement

As if caught in the trance of the world

Unaware of the before and after

Finding some peace in line and pigment

I never knew in my forgotten life

I am the Madonna of a soul

Come back from the treachery

Of bitter disappointment long ago

Awaiting your arrival

In my actual arms

Leonardo's Signature Valentine

Her caution was to catch

The clouds more caringly

To try to feel in the moisture rising

The moment when the flames appear

Dancing on the lake

Far out she could see the Victory

Of the world a painting

Of flaming battleships

By a man who stole from his teacher

The worst parts of his style

In her youth she had been a sailor

And wore a garnet on her throat

No one has ever painted the sea

She saw but she loved that painter

The one who would betray her

With a silver kiss

Proven Valentine

It is the proof I love you

In the skimmed-over muddle

Of our nights spent dreaming

Could you think of a more ridiculous

Way to say it than hibiscus

I mean I'm all soft angles

My skin consumed by bees

And I've noticed there's something resentful

On my way back over here

In most solid things

Being chained up that way

I wondered when it would all explode

Love finally emerge from under its weight

And begin to speak for itself

No need of proof or witness 

First and Last Valentine

I contract as the world expands

I seem to be everything and nothing

To myself until you arrive

But what knowledge I have of myself

Is like groceries in your arms

Leaves and fish and apples

While you survive on a strict

Diet of dry air and light

We are each other's food

And someone else sets the table

And carries in the steaming plates

And pours the Cheni blanc

Our first and last supper

This life I place on the altar

Of your hand my constant guest

One Seed Valentine

I trust the torah of just one seed

To unravel a whole new testament

I trust the air to nourish it

And the ground to fall away

As it rises I trust the scent

Of its flower drawn in

From the field of the stars

The night its lover

And the sun with no purpose

But to stroke its face

And encourage its progress

That one flower for which

The entire earth was made

Even if it goes unnoticed

I trust it with my life

Always Valentine

I wanted to say something wonderful

Once in a while and you would smile

But the ladderback's come back

To our yard this spring her squawk

Like lightening tearing the air 

And I keep losing my place

In the book of our revelations

Though I follow the words with my fingers

I wanted to touch the texture

Of this painted world with you

But even my you keeps changing

Though I know it's always just you

My one stranger and beloved

My struggle my friend

Tell Me Your Secret Valentine

The secret of my hibiscus is red

She wants me to live in flames

She says to practice her intensity

She has overcome the dead

Her leaves are her many lives

The things she loved and left behind

Out of my one bloom she says

I've carved a thousand seeds

And even if only mysteriously

A few come back to thrive

I will be content she says

With a look of sorrow on her face

The secret of red is my hibiscus

She rushes through my blood

Touching You Valentine

The fate of five hibiscus shrubs

In the desert is in my hands

Each year I have to plant

Another passion vine

If I ever hope to learn

How flowers become butterflies

The three dogs next door

Tell me when the mailman's here

Voices not yet words

Travel over the walls like birds

Leaving the heat behind

I am alone in my bucolic splendor

Snug as the bumble-bee

In his cave in the pomegranate tree

From here I can touch

Every single thing in the world

More Valentine

You my hairy caterpillar body

You tawny soft-shelled egg

You waiting cave or earthen hut

You secret creek running

To the source and back

Snatching light from my sight

And carrying it swiftly through

Underground tunnels and 

Under bridges into the open

Pasture land of my brain

Where I abandon you

In search of some lost elixir

That will save you from myself

Don't you see I want you to be more

Than picked flowers in a jar

More than this morning I bring back to you

Yet Another Easter Valentine

The flight-path of an angel

A rainbow hurries above

Saying she'll be back for us

As soon as she is able

But please don't just stand around

Waiting like an abandoned castle

To be claimed or torn down

Work on your levitation

Think of spring as a temple

Lifting up from the ground

You could still sprout again

One with everything that's rising

You could still touch its wounds

And know they were no fable

Lost Saturday Valentine

Who are you under the ground

Who wants to know

It would be pleasing to know

I can be pleasing to know

Don't you want me to know

Who you are to me

When you know let me know

Is that a fence between us

Or just the way you smile

Pass me everything you know

Surely you'll turn up in the end

If I just let you go

Did we not meet in the dream-halls

Of love and hate back then

And fought and were friends

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