Fridays' Valentine

Where we stand now

A being so far beyond us

Enters our lonely bones

With a shiver and a sigh

At last the deed is done

Like a key thrust in a door

Thrown open on the heavens

At least as a conjecture

A possible avenue to explore

But only leading to another door

Nailed shut in the heart

We struggle to open  or ignore

Where love lies buried

But is rising in a cloud

Oh Come On Now Valentine

I asked my friend of all

The people he has known

In this world would he want

To meet again in his next life

Not his parents or brother he said

Neither side of his family

No one he was especially close

To in school or the menial jobs

Like ants crossing a table it took

To get to a certain truce with himself

The solitude it takes to own

The ball you've thrown

Returns for you to catch

And looked at me just you

Even Valentine

Even the common fly

That glistens in the stink

Of bodies under a perfect sky

Must learn to think

Must long to become a butterfly

And take the steps from being

One afternoon to knowing why

Must climb up the ladder

As part of a conscious I

And humbly take its place

Now that the word's

Been spoken aloud

Now that we've seen

His face

Possible Valentine

When the flowers of the future

Overcome our blindness

And the new animals then

With tongues of flame

Bring home their prophecies

And the children who survive

The holocaust of the earth

Having never believed in death

Gather to play and sing

Their sparrow songs of praise

And quiet lamentation

Then maybe suddenly you'll recall

This day when you denied

The possibility of love's perfection

Reappearing Valentine

Today a gentle wind

Is all he's wearing

And a smiling light

Lifted from the sea

But I smell burning questions

On his breath held back

In a patient urgency

As he approaches me

Until we're face to face

Do you see it now he says

Daring me to refuse

Isn't this what you wanted

From the beginning of the world

A love you will never lose

Prima Donna Dove Valentine

She came so close

I turned aside and sat very still

To make her feel safe

And give her some privacy

So she could make

The next move down

To the waiting water

I knew how shy she was

But I turned back to look

Too soon just as she bowed

Her head to drink

And off she flew

She too fleeing death

For as long as she can

Frog's Valentine

Can there ever be less of the future

Than there is more of the past

A riddle balanced on a lily-pad

The first perfection of time

Before it started to know

Its own thoughts and feelings

The clock-body and the running down

To a shadow of its former self

And yet time is the only place

Eternity so far has found

Where it can come into its own

And feel the breeze on its face

And not have to worry about forever

And just plunge into it all

Broody Valentine

Is it alarm or laughter at the world

That sets my neighbor's chicken off

Crowing all morning or maybe

It's pride and joy over one egg

Offering to start a new world

Right here in the middle of the city

Unseen I picture her brooding

On the coming civilization

Silent through the afternoon

All night the egg dissolves

And in the morning she lays another

Crowing and crowing you

Have only a few days left

What is taking you so long

You Are All That Is Not Just Me Valentine

After so much so little

After too many too few

I still cling to this body

As if it was all I had

So small a hope in another

I hold on to this hopeful life

Resentful of my dependency on it

And loving that it brings me to you

I struggle to take it with me

Broken irreparably into me and you

But I promise to come back for you

With a whole army of light

And crown you in the place of God

Friend's Valentine

I want to thank you for your bravery

Which sometimes embarrasses me

And for the gift of your exuberance

Which lifts me out of my senses

A creek in spring I mean

Your flair for flowing over stones

Like me to wear them down

Somehow you've married

The warrior to the child

Which is all love needs to succeed

And overcome its suffering

Are there more like you in the world

Is there a country that you come from

Will you ever forgive me

Calling Valentine

Fall's judgment brings my death to me

Laid out in skeletal snow

Where fleshy summer hung

But there's some blood left in these bones

That only a spring can know

And there's a wind that draws me out

And another working from below

Filling my lungs with heaven and hell

So I have my own life and soul

Breathing the living and the dead

I sing a wandering song

And call you to me

Little things of earth

It won't be long for long

Your Death Day Valentine

First we made the mineral earth

Condensing it from our warmth and delight

Breathing into it ourselves the plants

So when the animals in us emerged

We would have some competition

But the seasons arrived before us

And the earth took up its own life

Separating from us at the same time we did

And we were left on-lookers

At all we had made out of love

At least we still told ourselves

It was love in our lonely moments

What else could it still be

That moves us to exist

Morning's Valentine

There is always something so heroic

About the morning for me

Whether it rushes over us

Or idles at the gate

Nursing its mythic proportions

A god we take for granted

Unless he stares us in the face

Scolding our limited vision

With his force and grandeur

A child who wants to know everything

A survivor who has swallowed darkness

And come back with the only flint

Still dry in his pocket

Eager to burst into flames

A Puppet's Plea Valentine

I have a hardly heart

And an almost head

And sometimes I can sense

The musical parts

That might assemble me 

The soul of a hand

That lifts me upright

And gives me words to speak

On a cardboard stage

And makes me joke and dance

Or explode with rage

All things I would not do or be

If you my truly life

Could just take hold of me

Breakfast at Golgotha Valentine

This sudden finch who shares

His morning feast with me

Of dandelion seeds for the picking

His red hopping around among the

Yellow heads and gray hardly a week

Between coming and going

As if their only purpose was

To feed the restless finch

And do me the honor

Of being his silent guest

Even if around us stand

So many gibbets with their bodies gone

And the finch what's left

Of the blood that's fallen

To feed the hungry ground

The Fable of the Rainbow Valentine

A few balmy thoughts

Was where yellow started out

A sanguine stare

Spreading itself over the sea

Ripening into orange and red

The best of friends slowly

Falling out with one another

What might have happened

If blue hadn't suddenly intervened

Flooding the earth with green

Turning the whole thing around

Forming an ephemeral bridge

Over the violet rushing water

Where so many come and go

My Memories of the Future Valentine

In my memories of the future

Strange how the past grows clearer

And my sense of safety in the world

Runs to hide in what I know 

About myself this cast of players

This crowded family living

In the subway under my ribs

These children I have witnessed

Passing through my spine

I know he has surrendered

His whole will to the world

And settled himself equally

And confidently in all its parts

How else could we be free

Past Valentine

The thing about 'evil' is not

That it will destroy itself

Through what is inherent in it

But that it could take us with it

Into its longing for nothingness

Which it already does it seems

To some extent or another

While the thing about 'kindness'

Is not its size or demeanor

Or its willingness to matter

More than material things

But that it speaks to something

inherent in the 'heart'

Past all imagining

Windy Valentine

Milking a metaphor all morning

I chanced upon a symbol of the moon

Holding the sun in its arms

Wearing a starry crown

In an ancient book of charms

A glyph that could lift the dead

When spoken bravely to the wind

By those who knew the sounds

To cast into the dark and cold

Words that were never written down

But mouth to ear were memorized

So when you stumbled and fell

You could speak them to yourself

And break this earthly spell

The Chaste Tree and the Passion Vine Valentine

The secret trick to life

Is you have to grasp it

Even as you let it go 

A simultaneous gesture

That practice perfects

So it can hardly be detected

How far back in time these leaves

Have to unwind to find

Your childhood waiting

In the warmth of the first sun

How can the eyes look outward

And inward at the same time

And not burst into birds or towers

If you have to ask the question

Old Valentine

A simile for brother

When we stand back to back

This old pomegranate tree

Spring's double amputee

Still wears its uniform for me

Of green for coming battles

With my sharpened shears

Who knew that blood could bloom

Into sacrificial flowers and make

It seem a happy parade

With a roaring exultant band

And floats of a hundred colors

This last one carrying its victory

Still blooming back from the wars

Spring Play Valentine

Intermittently through the play

A couple standing in the wings

A baritone and an alto interrupt

The action on the stage

With a brief and wonderful duet

The players seem genuinely surprised

As if this wasn't anything arranged

And yet so stunned by its beauty

They easily forget their lines

And have to be prompted to their parts

And resume as if nothing had happened

The realism of their dramatic situations

Carried onward by that song

Interpreting Their Scriptures Valentine

They say that evolution

Is a kind of liberation

From the formless light

And then a re-absorption

Which breathing right reveals

To be just another flourishing

They say the heart is like

The queen bee in the hive

Of the mind and the only thing

That is really evolving

They say if you sing this text

You will see a vision of light

The sun of a whole new day

Beauty's Valentine

Beauty is not always honest

Beauty is not always good

But beauty is always free

And freely she comes and goes

Preferring to take her chances

With impermanence and time

Than marry rich eternity

And never change her mind

Who beauty loves is freedom

As God's first-born child

Whose grace brings her to blossom

And whose wisdom keeps her wild

What good is truth what truth is good

Only freely beauty can decide

The Dead Don't Sleep Valentine

I turn over the page

Like the sheet of a bed

Where my body of words can rest

Or toss and turn pulled down

Into the lands of the dead

Who prove not dead at all

Just invisible behind the wall

Of the world of words

There is a seashore there

Where we discuss the war

Of those who want to build it higher

And those who want to tear it down

And what passes for death

Is just another life come round

Circumnavigating Valentine

When I sit down to imagine the earth

It's not from outer space alone

I picture myself in a surveillance plane

Low-flying over fields and towns

So I can almost see the faces

And be amazed at any moment

At the world we make go on

I like to land at night in a strange city

And walk the streets till dawn

Or on the outskirts of some battle

In the field of an abandoned farm

Where I can faintly hear the bombs

But in the morning off I fly

If I'm to make it back at all

Hopeful Valentine

I hope I become a child again

Before I enter heaven

But a child who plays an instrument

A fiddle or a plow

Out in the sunny fields all day

A child who can drive to town

To chat among the neighbors

And bring home ice cream

A child who wanders the hollows

Dependent on creeks and quiet

For even the simplest things

A child who says please and thank you

When his angel comes

To take him home

Humbled Valentine

I see the humble bumble-bee

Has emerged from her winter hole

In the old pomegranate tree

And fallen on the grass and died

I wonder what she's left behind

She does not look like something divine

A smudge that crumbles into dust

All last summer I stood back and watched

Her barely air-borne body

Set out with her empty bags

In the early morning haze

And trundle back in the twilight

Fairly dripping with silver and gold

To doze in her starry chamber

And not worry about nights or days

Embarking Valentine

A tiny white moth

Fluttered up out of my lap

I was just sitting there

And watched it rise and disappear

Was it an exhalation of my soul

Another hinge unfastened

Or nature being magical and drole

Like a coin pulled out of the air

By an invisible hand and smile

What if such things are always going on

And we only rarely notice them

Like yesterday a tiny ship

Flew up out of my head

Who knows for what voyages or end

Hearing You Call Valentine

I told you coos the dove

Somewhere just north of here

Or it could be I need you

There is a 'd' in there

Which makes me wonder

If the animals will learn to speak

On time to save us from ourselves

But why learn to talk and sing

If no one's listening

A prophet among her people

A Slavic woman told me once

You are either one who has ears

For death or one who has ears for love

Quoting some silent dove

Thursday Valentine

Out of the measureless light

That flows down on us endlessly

Out of the measureless darkness

That takes us into its sleep

After the gods have decayed

Into the words for months and days

And we have survived our many lives

We come to this particular Thursday

After which nothing is the same

What is it about Thursday

That it could become

The first human being

A feeling for the world

That takes the place of the gods

Spent Valentine

I spend most of today

Thumbing through yesterday

What just happened

The pages are already smudged

And the words I lined in yellow

Don't sound like the words I said

So I don't just repeat myself

But look up to find

What to do with this new blue sky

How to take its hand

And write down these words to you

Before the ink is dry

But sit and listen to a dove coo

And watch a mockingbird fly by

The Weeping Theory of the Case Valentine

Whether one body is unimportant

But many bodies are broken

Thrown up against the wall

Whether one body takes a bullet

But many bodies are exploded

Whether one body flees

Over the last fallen bridge

But many bodies follow

Whether one body is safe

But many bodies freeze

Whether one body can survive

So many bodies left behind

Whether one body will evolve

Out of so many disparate kinds

Looking Into Mary Valentine

Her coat of arms when she had been

A soldier-abbess in her middle ages

Surrounded by her muffled prayers

Might have displayed a greenish turtle

Swaying through her busy days

And up in the right-hand corner a silver owl

Listening all night for her mate

Both painted on a golden ground

With a serious-looking lake in silk

Embroidered between them

Or in a less churlish time a boyish

Ephesian girl tending her father's flock

When she was first learning how

To hold us all in her heart

In and Out of the Air Valentine

I believe the brain is a kind of balloon

Whose air breathed in and out

Floats in a sky of endless ideas

And moods that catch a ride

Thoughts snatched out of the air

That can be put to use

Thoughts that pass by

Hurrying off to someone else

We are the books that will

Have to be written to contain them all

But meanwhile the thoughts are working

On the brain to build a better balloon

One that can leave itself behind

Tell Me You Do Valentine

You do realize here on earth

We are the captive audience of the stars

First the ones that trigger us into

A certain trajectory and form

You do remember that signature

They scrawled on the agreement you made

The pages and pages of fine print

Torn Up and scattering on your arrival

And what about the stars behind the sun

That go on diligently shining

Don't you think they matter

Because their light is small

Don't you sometimes hear them call

Early Days Valentine

A card to John a birthday call to Bernie

A bow to Dee and Mary-Pat

I think of you all just like that

Then lunch with Darren at the best

Burgers in town and a serious talk

Then shopping for salad and bread

And those foaming bubbles

You like to clean so clean

The bathrooms with on weekends

And then home for a quiet supper

And the news of the coming age

On a zoom with cosmic friends

But it's still early days they say

To be so old so young

Ash Wednesday Valentine

The most dangerous days of the year

Stretch out before us like a gauntlet now

Though the streets are strewn with colored trees

And it seems we will be arrested

Any moment for being too happy

The air is so blue and gripping

The death of spring however dramatic

Comes down to its blossoming

The irrefutable calyx and sepals

Once looked at look back at you

When beauty passes you by

Dragged off to face

Another savage tribunal

And to open up the sky

Jade Valentine

Every three months I have to turn

The great jade plant in my window

Completely around so the dark side

Has time in the sun and moonlight

Even a plant has to face the bombs

Always falling somewhere in the world

A delicate operation without losing a leaf

But not so much for mothers and children

I have to tell you world this great jade

Is looking you right in the face now

Its white and green leaves reach

Through centuries its arms to you

I have turned it so it can sing again

Even if feebly its courage song

Only Come Spring Valentine

When you see what love comes down to

Diving deeper and deeper

Into grief and surrender

Taking up its throne even

In the darkest depths

Luminous and inextinguisible

At the center of the earth

Then you know what love is up to

As it replaces the sun

And tosses the moon away

And forges you into a tiny

Piece of gold or emerald

In the dark mines of gods

Riches they intend to spend

Even Valentine

For our separate willing

The world is given

But in heaven we

Will have to toe the line

Joyfully reverently

Through long lectures

And transforming singers

And those who leave early

For long twilight walks

To meet themselves

Coming toward them

Through the woods

Even in heaven I think

We'll have a private life

And fall in love for a while

And not know why and die

Why Capable Valentine

A bucket full of water is capable

Of remembering being rain

A gathered will waits in the water

To be poured out over the heads

Of heroes and failures alike

A bucket full of water is capable

Of projecting itself into the air

Hoisted on tiny hands and feet

Until it reaches the right

Cerulean and blackest clouds

To settle down in once again

But the rain is only capable of falling

In peace or in revenge

While the bucket catches it all to the brim

Capable Valentine

Many very capable people

Don't want to become famous

Don't like to have to sell themselves

And thus do poorly on tests

Group sports or interviews

They are suspicious of too much confidence

So when they come to the door of the castle

They enter the great hall with the crowd

Where the sumptuous feast is laid

And stand in reverence when

The old mothers and fathers file in

The moaning king and the holy vessel

They love a good teacher

Too much to shout a question

And so are quietly expelled

To become their own wandering solution

Mystery Play Valentine

Pursued by our interests

Confirmed by our talents

Lifted into some genius

By the list of players assembled

The audience of angels

Rustling into stillness in the dark

Finally the gardener arrives

The secret protagonist of the play

To speak the prologue of the sun

And carry the stars on stage

In my version he is surrounded

By children and I speechless

Have been poorly cast as one

Awkwardly reaching for his hand

Sometime before the scene is done

Next Valentine

A materially-based 

Grasping of the world

Is the false fairy-tale

From which magic

Has been driven out

And yet even when that happens

Magic persists as magic

Not being of this world

It cannot pass away

Time itself proves indestructible

Building and re-building 

And space has only room

For a stable and a tomb

It's all as simple as the bible

Or your very next thought

Kissed Valentine

This kiss started out

Centuries ago

In an uncertain breeze

So silent you could hear

Leaves uncurling

Distant rain coming closer

You could feel its breathing

On your face this kiss

That had nowhere else to be

Just following its instincts

Just passing through the world

To wind up on everyone's lips

To startle you

Arouse and bless

Forgive Means Free Valentine

I can be a jerk a prick a pain

But just to know that you are mine

My jerk my prick my pain

Relieves me of all sick and shame

And when you say fairy tale to me

Do you mean a lie or a depiction

Of that hidden world we're actually

Living in our true adventures

The reenactments of our dreams

The world is my imagination and you

Objects set against our aim

The world always struggling for attention

And always more of you to come

Until Valentine

That forgotten ballet dancer who said

That marionettes were his master teachers

That only grace can defy gravity

And will like a column of electricity

Down the center of the body 

Become the sword he danced with

Evading the blade from side to side

First they showed him the dance of aloneness

How to swirl into stillness

And fall down on the grass and laugh

How to escape being caught in himself

Until he was ready one day he said

To dance the water dance

The air dance and the dance of fire

Until they would all consume him

Dreaming Valentine

Our dreams still practice the sacred arts

Of story-telling and divining

Each one its own genre and drama

The genius of sleep reveals

Her purpose in vivid pictures

Hidden as stars during the day

How can we sleep knowing

That magic world is there

Frightening us into the courage

To believe in fairy-tales

In which all our dreams

Are coming true as if

Like marionettes we could

Be moved by the grace of gods

Mayfly's Valentine

Mayfly lighting on my knee

Make a wish for me

Tell me how that radiant green

Made you the Mercury of spring

Did you come up through the ranks

Of unpromotable angels

To become the corporal of the green

So now you have to guard the border

Leading from the underworld

Into the kingdom of the green

Checking our passport pictures

Asking the purpose of our visit

We could be the spies of spring

But still you let us enter

If Even Valentine

If even someone blind

As I can see

The light of thoughts

Shaping me

If even someone deaf

As I can hear

The music colors

Of an inner sphere

If even someone lame

As I can walk right

Into another world

Then even someone stubborn

As I can flow

Into the eternal all

Full Mother's Valentine

Finally the world gets out of the way

And the moon deftly comes into her own

Slips loose from her constraining father

And the compromises of her gender

To fully comprehend her splendor

Single regal virgin mother rising

Behold your son who watches you

Sailing into the ethereal blue

Just a few nights we have together

Before your memory melts away

Just a few words exchanged by lovers

About to enter the grave of the sun

Until I return to be your mother

And recognize you as my son

Post Mortem Valentine

How did it go your presentation

Of yourself were you able

To be yourself however others

Perceived you out there in the world

And to get far enough past yourself

That you could let some real thing

Peer through the outer covering

To be a doorway not just a window

Through which others could walk

To remember how you were put together

So precisely through timeless time

And to return as someone's son or daughter

After you have reassembled yourself

Refurbished by the hands of stars

Midway Valentine

Today I set myself the goal

Of just cutting the grass and

Calling a friend but a single

Spider's thread like a tightrope

Swaying in and out of the light

Called me to cross the abyss

Of the day my arms outspread

Zigzagging towards the other side

On my left eviscerating darkness

On my right the consuming sun

Where I could survey the uncut grass

And hear the voice of my uncalled friend

Struggling to keep my balance

Between the living and the dead

Lost Valentine

I misplaced my love

I looked for it everywhere

Not finding it there 

Where I usually put it

You said you hadn't seen it

But it must be somewhere

When do you last remember

Holding it in your hand

I hope I didn't lose it

Swimming out of sight of land

No look now there it is

Surfacing in your smile

As if I could lose that ocean

By drowning for a while

Earth Song Valentine

Earth and water and air and warmth

All that sustains me here on earth

My lightening flesh my rainbow soul

And you who mastermind it all

In streaming plants and lordly clouds

Who strengthen me with falling stars

When I am crushed with worldly fears

And feel I will not make it far

Too much for me too grand your goal

Unless you let me lend your will

And lift me to that lonely hill

My faith grown sour your heart gone still

And I can see like northern lights

Your body flashing in the heights

Found Valentine

I sent my star out wandering one night

Among the billion stars of course it got

Lost at first finding it had taken only

A few provisions the last of the remaining

Drops of courage I had saved

From years trying not to be afraid

But following a distant music

And traveling only at night

Avoiding the glittering cities

And sleeping in the woods all day

Finally it reached that purple ocean

I had always felt was there

And sent back word to me

To come all was prepared

Nameless Valentine

Again that hawk appeared

This time right in my yard

Three strange caws I heard

But when I looked around

He quickly disappeared

I waited for him in the sky

To signal it was not absurd

To see in him some intersection

So far and yet close by

With that other world

An omen or annunciation

Of some fragment of my I

I rushed too soon to claim

The secret of my spirit name

What's Wrong With Appreciation Valentine

Sometimes it's like taking your kids

On a vacation and all they want

To do is fight it's exhausting

Trying to love people who only want

Power who find it hard to be kind

How long can the earth put up with it

To make a bounty and then have it

Thrown out like trash when

There's so much tenderness

Rushing toward us in every

Child's face hidden in every adult's

Self-protective demeanor

Sometimes the only thing that gives me hope

Is to be alone with you and weep

Un-Valentined

The vivid shadow

Of the starfish cactus

In the foreground

Of a greenish puddle

Captive in its ocher pot

How did its lovely flowers

Come to stink of rotting flesh

Was it from jealousy or despair

When the ancient sea departed

Being neither fish nor star

Stranded on the desert floor

Five-petaled cup flies come to sip

And in the center preserved in oil

The little face of love no more

Winter Crossing Valentine

Now we come to the dumbest

Darkest nights of the year

When all the planets huddle

On the other side of the earth

Hidden in the cradle of the sun

And only a handful of icy stars

Shiver above the moony lake

At last we're left on our own

To cross these darkest depths

This no-man's-land of dreams

Like candles without flames

To the land of the unborn

To the light of the farthest star

Each of us sailing to rescue

Our own individual dawn

Birding Valentine

Circling like a conscience

A high faint scream

A red-tailed hawk

Searching for mistakes

Here eat mine I cry

I've lots more than I need

But a mockingbird calls dibs

Always robbing me of words

Probing me with its beak

While a hummingbird watches

And two finches tsk and tsk 

Feasting on my sins

Until all that's left is love

Just enough to feed a dove

Now I Am Your Age Then Valentine

One persistent picture I keep of you

Was when I rented that old whaler's

House in Maine and we sat side by side

In the silence after supper

Out on the long screened porch

Watching the moon come up

And stars seep in with the tide

Somehow we found ourselves alone

Where everyone else had gone I don't

Remember maybe to shop in town

But it was strange like finding

One another in a dream of when

You used to be my mother

And I used to be your son

Forgotten Valentine

If I could regress my little life

To the time of the fairy tales

When forests covered these tired streets

I knew who would play which roles

Like the ailing queen alone

Raising her only son

While her husband went off to war

And that curious boy left to wander

The rocky hills around the shore

Until he stumbled on a witch's lair

Where he learned to read and write

Not in books but air and sunlight

How to cast a spell with bones

Until one day he forgot the way home

Confessional Valentine

When I was very young

I wanted to be a saint

I would preserve my innocence

And slowly penetrate the world

I would be a messenger of peace

And a disgrace to evil men

And taken out and tortured

And hung upon a stake

When I was still a child

I took these horrors to my heart

I knew the fairy tales were real

Of which the earth was just a part

I knew my angel would guide me

And give me the courage to feel

In myself the whole world's soul

Alone With You Valentine

Slowly the air grows chillier

And the gray unconscious clouds

Dreaming of rain or snow

Cover the deserted town

Of my mind population one

I have the feeling I'm being

Looked at but there's

No one here except my angel

Who of course is simply

Waiting to be seen

Who believes in me

But doesn't speak a word

I have the feeling I don't exist at all

Except as she is keeping me in her gaze

Breathing me in and out

These nights these days

Stolen Valentine

A two-year old puts on a hat

And says now isn't this cute

Not as cute as her saying so

An old man on the street

Is telling a story to a young woman

Who is laughing uproariously

I wish I could hear what he's saying

South of here a mourning dove is cooing

Two long notes and then a short

What is that in Morse Code

I'll have to look it up

But then from the north comes

The echo of its mate

Five faint notes asking

If it's all too late

Mid-Winter Valentine

On the last day of January

I saw the first honeybee land

On a new yellow dandelion

Two fools coaxed out too soon

With still crushing snows to come

Or had last year left them behind

For a few warm days to find

Mid-winter summertime

Both too early and too late

But boy that bee was hungry

And girl that flower gleamed

Even if only for a few hours

Even if it was only a dream

Accepting and defying fate

My Animal Life Valentine

My neighbor's chickens

Sound the alarm

Another holocaust in the barn

At 3 A.M. that coyote came round

To my door we stared at one another

Through the glass he wasn't

Asking for directions or trying

To defend his actions

Or begging for forgiveness

He just wanted me to see him

And to know he would be back

For me at some uncertain hour

But when I tried to invite him in

He smiled and turned and ran

That Sound Valentine

My teacher was once a siren

Howling through the town  

Her curriculum of doom

Her lightening quizzes

That left each of us alone

Shaking our pencils chewing our knees

When I was ten a boulder

Grazed my head like a hand

Brushing back my hair

So now every moment I hear it

Feels like an emergency of hope

Being rushed to the hospital

Hope laying on a cold table

Hope climbing back up the hill

Lest Valentine

Death our boon

The Father's gift

Lest we forget

Our first home

Vain the wish

To live forever in matter

When death is so much stronger

Out in the whispering morning

Where the dead gather for prayer

Trying to comfort the living

I have come upon their camps

Heard stories by their fires

Where death chokes on flesh and dies

And only we seeds are left

Waiting for life to flower

Again Valentine

While the living word decays

In a graveyard of cliches

Haunted by a glorious past

While the same five books

Are thrown into the same five fires

Refusing to be read at last

While our bodies and our souls

Still recognize themselves

In a few consonants and vowels

While we're still posing here

Taking pictures of ourselves

Let me adore you once more

Let me sing your genius again

Or what was living for

Messaged Valentine

I heard a cawing in the sky

And when I looked up I saw

Black wings too large to be a crow's

Outstretched and circling widely

In the up-drafts and every time

It would orbit round to the place

Closest to me though it was still

Pretty far up there it would caw

Four times at me I mean

Who else was listening

To this circling and cawing

That went on for several minutes

Until my neck got sore

It all seemed so deliberate

Personal and secretive like

A message slipped under a door

Late Epiphany Blues Valentine

Blame and fame and shame

The three main stages of growth

On earth to be followed by

A fourth or more still to come

In which we will have swallowed

The world and come out

The other side there's just

This little stone in the works

You must put your heart into it

And push it right through

Your head until it starts to see

Who we really are

We wise men

Still following some star

Skeptical Valentine

He asked me if there could ever be

An understanding of the world

Shared by everyone and then

He told me it already exists

And looked at me with his best

Rumi smile I wanted to kiss him

For his confidence but he went on

Insisting I look more closely

At the intricate human heart

Or the delicate spiritual brain

And tell him they didn't have a chance

Of bringing us all together

In every single being

Woven Valentine

What does the rain really symbolize

In this fading tapestry of the gods

And over there those fields of snow

Still falling what is it meant

To convey if not surrender

The long laying down of arms

After their final battle

Over the myth of man

You have to imagine the original colors

When it was first unveiled

In the great palladium of the air

For them to come and stare

You have to try to feel again

Their deep sorrow and relief

Falling as snow or rain

Unspoken Valentine

Sometimes it takes my angel

A long time to come back

From a hard night of dreaming

I get up early and wait to hear

Her footsteps down the hall

Her bright smile or weary frown

Carrying in the dawn

We sit and watch and cannot

Speak while slowly the light

Re-enlivens her and her arms

Enter my arms her body

Encloses me as far as she

Can reach and every day we make

A little progress towards speech

Convicted Valentine

First you have to figure out

If the gift you bring

Is something leftover 

From another birthday

That will fade and need

To be replaced by something less

Ambitious more courageous

Or if like a pearl it can

Flower accumulating luster

Growing stronger and clearer

An arrow straight out of a cloud

That descended one day

A gathering of glory

Just enough to be convincing

Which Mountain Is The Mind Valentine

Our current home is divided

Between deserts and mountains

On one side real winters and springs

On the other hot endless summers

Except how the pines up north

Are the direct descendants

Of our waving southern palms

I haven't figured out yet

How something gets to be

Where it makes the most

Of the weather around it

On the shoulders of boulders

And the weaving sands

Where the mountains stand firm and alone

And the deserts fold their hands

Something Valentine

Doesn't dreaming prove the soul

Leads a strange double life

In which the things unnoticed here

Seem magnified out of all proportion

And given a whole new credibility

Until the soul dissolves in riddles

And the reality of another world

Clearly more alive than this one

Something surprising about our true

Character seeps through each night

Something we keep trying to remember

Or struggle to forget

When we return shaken or amused

To another ordinary morning

Unanswered Valentine

How you answer the questions

Not what you say or mean

Which is often a mask

But the gestures that reveal

What kind of thinking

Goes on in that heart of yours

Which looks at me and looks away

Right now it's raining but the sun

Tries to explain its reasons

For falling across your face

With the same hand you use

To brush your hair away

And yet it all makes sense to me

That you remain a mystery

Thinking Valentine

If thinking is light damped down

Then the sun must be love positioned

At just the right angle

To create a miniature masterpiece

Of itself in each part

Intelligence falls in the air

Both manna and dust

Accumulating on my books

But when I retrace their steps

I end up with a single vowel

The holiest word I

My little precipice

On a hilltop in Ephesus

From which I can feel it all

Biographical Valentine

Even death must have had a birth

A parentage somewhere a beginning

A struggling youth before it reached

Its majority among us

Ripening into its convictions

Adapting its different religions

Finally begging to be rescued

From its sad misunderstandings

There must have been a time before

The body hardened offering death

A new sense of purpose

A rite of passage just as there

Must be a time when even it

Will have faded into history

Streaming Valentine

My theory of my feelings

Is that they're like a little choral group

Always playing in the background

A band that rehearses

Two or three times a week

In the back of a church or store

I mean they move with the music

Unaccountable streams of inflection

That work magically on the body

The smile rushing up from the pulse

The scowl settling down in the bones

I go to all their concerts

Sometimes I'm completely confounded

By the new music they play

Sometimes I'm completely found

Foolish Valentine

What made me foolish

When I was younger

Is not the same foolishness

I feel now I'm older

It's deepened into

The entire earth

For which I don't feel

Responsible enough

And yet remain

Insanely optimistic

Not about its prospects

Those are doomed

But it's longing

To go on being born

Stuck Valentine

Two young children

Fighting over a puppet

A piercing scream fills the place

And we're all just stuck there

Watching the scolding parent

And the comforting parent

Try to figure one another out

Those who don't trust empathy

And those who feel there's no

Other way the screaming world

Can survive than equally

And not as puppets

In which a fearful hand

Pretends it is not lonely

Maybe Valentine

Exhausted by the plague and wars

I read about other wars and plagues

That there has never been

A whole century between them

Since we took over on earth

Creating the picture

And then erasing it

Waiting to see what

Lives behind it

Maybe we're just starting out

To think I like to think

About the peril we're in

No I mean seriously reverently

Maybe we're just gathering the strength

To take on ourselves in the end

Hungry Valentine

In last night's dream

Of fifty years ago

You came back to me as a child

When we lived alone on the farm

When you were teaching me

How to be a father the best

Job I've ever had but

In this dream you were hungry

And I offered to make you

A grilled cheese your favorite

But you just hugged me and fell asleep

In my arms dreaming

This very dream

I had last night

Another Valentine

The uncertainty of the outcome

In each individual case

Whether the ball is caught or dropped

Or even ever thrown in a life

Whether there was too much light

Or too much darkness that night

Flashing in front of the bus

Climbing the perilous mountain road

The survivors clutching the dead

But this still isn't the end

They both get up and walk away

The living back to their tightropes

And the dead to some inner space

Where they grow toward another day

Old Love Valentine

Love starts out greedy

And a little too needy

Obsessive and regressive

So rushing on you pull back

From the shattering effect

Love wants to come first

At everything and fails

Ruined by its perfectionism

Or doomed by its precipitativness

How could you love that

You wonder years later

How could you not

The day love gets old

You'll know it got no wiser

I Can't Decide Valentine

I know when I'm starving

And scanning the menu nonchalantly

For the most delicious thing

So I'm going to let you order for me

Your collective wisdom coalesce

Into the feast of your presence

Whatever the chef has on hand

Lentils with half an onion

Over a bowl of saffron rice

Would be nice with a little wine

To set the tongue going

On and on about forever

Tasting the time together

All the way down to our souls

Surviving Valentine

My cat loves me too much

She's either loving me or sleeping

And she sleeps too much

She's like a pillow on the couch

I rest my head on until she rises

And tries to sit on my face

How much love is enough

To live on comfortably

And to be able to travel

But she was born in an alley

And learned the hard way

The only way to live is to be loved

And there is never enough of love

Lucky me now is there

Epiphany Valentine

Sneaky snail-track contrail

Glitters and disappears

The blue goes back to blue

The ground stands still

Though we know it's whirling

A little like a drunk

In a dream you woke from

Sweating shaking

Almost a melodrama

If it weren't so tragic

Of a phantom chasing you

Yelling no, no I won't 

Hurt you I just want to meet

And catch up on your story

Willed Valentine

If I think of it I can feel

The pull of my will

Holding me together

In a loose configuration

Of unresolved wishes

And firm intentions

I see it as a vast lake

The way it just sits there

At the bottom of awareness

Offering boat rides

And threats of drowning

Always ready to give itself away

To lie still and let the sun

Have its downward way

Proud Epiphany Valentine

To have been in the world

Several times and not

Fully appreciated my arrogance

And blundering purpose

In existing for you all

I'm not sorry I couldn't

Stop staring at your beautiful

Faces each one a secret

I would like to penetrate some day

So clutching and ambitious

I could have been a musician

Even now I feel myself

Lining up my songs

Still carrying a torch for you

Craving Valentine

This morning fairly bounces into my brain

Like two eggs boiling in a pot

My troubled thoughts of you 

My beautiful thoughts of you

Eating my breakfast alone

Watching birds out the window

Delicious panic of winds

Catching them mid-flight

So they turn and go the other way

That kind of clever windy day

Full of silences and twists

Bare prodigies craving to be born

And groceries to be carried home

And lips waiting to be kissed

New Year's Valentine

When I hear the little iron bell in the yard

Which only a certain velocity of wind

Can lift into its tinkling dance

I want it to rush right through me too

The light stirring the warmth and cold around

Until the movement makes a human sound 

Like the failing and quickening heart-beat

Of an embryo struggling to be born

Right here in my own backyard

Think of it at my late age

With an infant to care for

And carry around

All I love these early days

Why Did They Come To This Country Valentine

At the end of a broken line

At the end of another year

You find yourself besieged

Alone in a house of trouble

Uncertain whether to oppose

The snow or just walk out into it

An immigrant of your own recovery

The little bits of sanity you grasp

A squeaking dove on the roof

A circle of sun crossing your head

Sleeping with your boots on

And your gun in your hand

Who would have thought that this

Was victory this struggling bliss

Placed Valentine

Where a massacre occurred

One of the holy places on the earth

After a few hundred years

The victims returned and built

A school of the living arts

Where flower arranging led on

To the geometry of the stars

Dispersing its students like seeds

In an explosion of gratitude

Into the general population

But a long time the killing will go on

Before some child can stare out

Her drowsy classroom window

At the whole world a holy place

But Not Of It Valentine

All of these parts of ourselves

That come from distant places

Or just across that field

Arriving and departing

I want to know them all

But how could I intrude

When we collide and coalesce

Into this world for a while

On our sacred honor

Each in our own way

To come to the spirit in things

Hidden in macaroon clouds

And in the smallest gesture

That you are alive inside