I Take The Cup Valentine

Our own hands were the first cup

Scooping the cooling water to our lips

Until our leaky fingers were struck

With the idea of a solid bowl

From which so many goblets

Trophies vessels have evolved
Even a chalice and a grail to hold

The mystery of the wine turned blood

And still I plead to take this cup

From me this sorrow and this pain

But who to give it to

The world refuses to take it up

I am myself the cup I drink

Which only your fine will can fill

While I Was Gone Valentine

You just couldn't help yourself

From harrowing the tired yard

Summer's dead removed

Leaving empty graves

Planted now with new

Flowering arrivals small

Hopes desperate to fill in

The few feet between them

The hard work of it

Humbling you proud

And our blue-flowering tree alone

Christ in its leafy branches

Heavier than you expected

Must have taken you days

Untangling his body from the dead

A Radical Departure Valentine

Sometimes these days I'm stopped

In my tracks just standing there

Immovable for a few moments

A stone in a stream letting it all

Wash over and around me

Life and time and my death go by

And it changes nothing this sunny day

It's as if I can feel myself

Melting and merging into things

A train or a bridge or an empty street

Like that one in Samos we walked all night

Because in a flash it all slips past

Veers off into some eternity

While death swims just upstream

Waiting at some harbor with you

Hepatica Valentine

To go from mineral to living color

From pebble to leafy petal flesh

Is it not an epoch's journey

To just show up one day

The rush of wind embracing

The miracle of your face

Waiting for your name to arrive

In no one's forest garden

After so much melting and groaning

Passing in and out of terrible fires

And silent centuries of ice

To bloom for a couple of hours

A mountain dissolved in your scent

Your secret promise kept

In The Time Of Elm Trees Valentine

Seventeen is the cruelest year

A rubber band pulled taut

Full of what you don't have

And empty of all you want

That summer I caught an endless bus

To a tiny North Ontario town

Where my ancient grandparents

Gave me a room in their crumbling house

And left me free to roam around

The fields and the next-door graveyard

Where their son the priest was laid

Grandma spoke hardly a word but

Grandpa played his fiddle for me

Ardent tunes from his Irish youth

And asked me what I wanted to be

I lied to them and said a priest

When a poet was the truth

I Don't Know Its Name Valentine

All summer long despite

The constant riveting heat

Purple flowers no one planted

Have spread in my narrow yard

It was the wind or the resident birds

Or seeds carried on my shoes

Tall large clumps the pools

Of sun have randomly fed

Kept constantly in flower

A pale alchemical purple

Waving above a sea of green

All if you look closely in

With a gleaming yellow center

That illuminates their sorrow

Earth's Valentine

The most curious thing about

Living on the earth today

Hobbled as we are by bodily misgivings

Besides the question of what it's worth

Is the unavoidable sense we're ever

Only aware of hardly half of what's

Right there in front of us

Stunned by the beauty of nature

We take the signifier for the sign

And get caught up in personal adventures

And the false science of history

How long will it be lost to us

The earth behind the earth

If we look further in

Where only spirit is

San Miguel Valentine

The San Miguel is a river in hell

That runs through deserted towns

Once flourishing with busy sounds

It starts with the naked bones of a saint

Exposed at the bottom of a pit

Who left behind forgotten now

A clear map to heaven

But once every ninth or eleventh year

He brings a heavy week-long rain

That turns the desiccated canyons

A startling resurrection green

A stolen paradise that lasts a season

When the dead return to the towns

To sing and dance in the ruined cathedrals

And tear all sadness down

From A Tower Valentine

It's clear when I look up

At the stars' blazing clusters

Of light like cities seen

From a plane at night

There must be other civilizations

Living there beings of light

At their most basic and profound

And it's clear the earth is just

One member of a scattered family

Even if the youngest one

Thrown out when her mother died

Putting everything in storage

And it's clear there's much

More darkness than light

But not clear which is winning

Cold Valentine

I left you stranded

On a distant star

With visitation rights

Just so I could drive this car

Speeding through winter nights

All the windows open

I left you for another

I would soon abandon

I left you pounding on the door

While I pretended to disappear 

Was it out of love or fear

I left you your favorite guitar

And a scribbled note

Please take the garbage out

Just Asking Valentine

What if suddenly this reliable earth

Evaporates under your feet 

And all the lights go out at once 

With only a lukewarm breeze 

Wafting from Saturn's shores

Breathing you slowly in and out

Will you have saved forgiveness enough

To spark a signal fire out of the nothing

Your are on that dark and shoreless sea

From what's left of your ashen heart

Will you have finally made a friend

Of that shining brother who stands

At heaven's only door or will

He send you back for more

One Valentine

Through whatever adumbrations

The world has led to you and me

So we can trace our bodies back

While our souls evade heredity

Some great grandmother's pale eyes

Recycled in a runaway boy

Who reenacts the promise

She was forced to destroy

Our souls that pull us forward

While our bodies trail behind

But this particular you

And this particular me

Our lives so intertwined

Divide equally between us

One destiny and mind

Unsolved Valentine

A body burnt beyond

Recognition in broad

Daylight and no one noticed

A human skull in a box

Of toys donated to Goodwill

Poisonous mushrooms popping up

Between the bright lantana flowers

Something rapping on my window

At two in the morning no one there

What am I to do with these

Edgar Allan mysteries

But turn the page read on

The clueless bodies pile up

The killer strikes at dawn

Late For Life Valentine

Her due-date's running late

Under the great dome of her belly

Her son's still staring at the ceiling

Where the frescoes of his life to come

Are just receiving the final touches

And the scaffolds are being taken down

Until finally his anxious guide and him

Are left alone in the vastness

Of the light of a single flame

His guide urging him to come

Look they're locking up the doors

But he's still taking pictures

With his phone to show

Them all when he gets home

Wilderness Valentine

How to get the story straight

In the land of if and but

Where there is nothing definite

But even more convincing doubt

How dam up the tide of hate

Would it only gouge a lake

To cover up our big mistake

What happened here

In that first year

How is it now

Only a few can hear

And yet the call stays clear

Only answerable

By love or fear

Because Valentine

Because I can hear them

They must be singing for me

A small nestle of finches

In the shedding tree

And that it matters not

To them I listen

Strangely caught

It matters all 

The more to me

Their song goes on forever

For pure pleasure

Until I start to hear

Buried inside

Some dark urgency

Some flight by night

That speaks to me

Recovering Valentine

A patch of skin flayed from the head

A transplant from the hips to fill it in

I hope you were under for all of it

And wake now with some effective meds

In your own comfortable bed

I'm sending my angel to sit with you

Until I can come myself

And a playlist of healing sounds

Some popular some Bach

Do you know Ravel's piano concerto

Second movement where the soul

Lifts out of the body and cascades

In a silver rain of stars as if

Music might make us whole

The Gift Of Extra Years Valentine

I rub my arm across my brow

I stare at purple flowers

I cut my hair shower and shave

And read content for hours

I wait for the ring-necked dove

To land on my neighbor's roof

Her coo is a kind of reprimand

Though she keeps it sweet and brief

I live in a luxury of time

Remembering all my debts

To friends pleading for forgiveness

And burying my regrets

If once you've really loved I find

There's no such thing as loneliness

Sweeping Up After Valentine

Last night the other shoe dropped

Heavy trees uprooted by high winds

An ochre dust covering the city lights

And then it rained for the first time

After several months of searing heat

And just yesterday I was reading all

About Proserpine the Goddess Natura

And the fairy-tale of her flight

Her slow fading from medieval minds

The forgetting of her holy rites

And now where she stood and spoke

A smiling weatherman predicts

Another rain will pass us by

Though the sky stay gray and thick

Where Am I Valentine

It's where my life domestic-comic

Intersects the incoming cosmic

On that bridge between the two

River rushing underfoot

Fires burning overhead

Where one can have a second thought

Not I but one with all the dead

The world lets us in too far

Yet everything depends on supper

First and last the river hums

That wants to carry me away

I stand admonished and amazed

In the kitchen of my days

Cutting carrots singing praise

What Does It Want Valentine

When I see the eye of the moon

Has opened up completely

And leans a little further in

As if for a better view of us

Blinking through shores of clouds

To mitigate its blinding gaze

I start to sense a great being

Whose blazing eye this must be

Some dreamer fully wakened

Looking around an unfamiliar room

Searching for its other eye perhaps

As if it left it here in the world

Pouring through every wave and town

Stopping every woman and man

God The Cat Valentine

Isn't God as tender as this cat

Who lays her cheek against my leg

And sleeps and snores like him

But still won't let me touch her

I know he can take on many forms

More ambitious than a cat

But something about her purring

Keeps him coming back

To stretch his legs

To leap and pounce

And after a long and

Unsuccessful hunt in the yard

Come home and rub his head

Against my foot circling me

Begging for his food

Paul's Birthday Valentine

Because we shared coming into this world

Into our strange and confusing holy family

Because you were the first infant I held

In my arms and I was only seven

I think I felt then so many

Years later looking back

A strange mixture of pride and envy

From the beginning and when

We grew up and went our ways

Meeting again only in the middle

Of our lives my talk turned into rancor

And after that we hardly spoke

For thirty years I think I felt

You were living the life

I had imagined for myself back then

And I resented you for it somehow

The life I had rejected for myself

And you into the bargain

But that was all a big mistake

Simple kindness tells me that

And your extended hand

What Enlightened Him Valentine

Because he foresaw

We'll all end up

As buddhas whatever

Time it would take

He treated everyone

He met with deep

Respect and tact

Bowing inwardly

As if to say don't forget

Where you're going

I hold you in the highest

Esteem your victory

Already won and look

You can almost taste it

Buddha Onboard Valentine

What if all babies are buddhas

Like the one following my gaze

Asking who are you as I pass by

And why are you smiling at me

A look of wonder about to cry

Or maybe a grin of recognition

Floats up from another world

The crease of a smile in time

To catch its blessing on the run

And carry home that image

Seeing everything for the first time

Face before it becomes a face

Yes why are you smiling

Try to be more like me

Crying and crying for this world

Unsure Valentine

When they finally dropped me off

On earth it was in the middle

Of a quarrel my unwed mother

Had to kiss my father off to war

Inside her we took the train

From nowhere north to the busy city

Where we were quite alone

In the hospital for wayward girls

Far from her embarrassed sisters

So I took my time arriving

While she wrote unsent letters

To him and the war got worse

She was only twenty and I

Unsure I was a blessing or a curse

Still Valentine

When I read

How he was betrayed

By the bad

Behavior of his friends

I knew it was me

When I noticed

Only one or two

Followed him

To the other side

Of his death I knew

It wasn't me

But still I feel

His shoulders under me

And know he carries me

To someone I must be

Days Like These Valentine

When we're apart

I start to believe

In a spirit world

A few hundred miles from here

Where you are living now

It's strange how souls

If we subtract the body

By distance or by death

Grow closer imagining one

Living inside another

Listen I wanted to tell you

Something important but it

Can wait and anyway it's

Late at night where you are now

In the memory of my dreams

Death Valley Days Valentine

Midsummer respite

In the seething desert

A human eighty degrees

A few days grateful cloudiness

Leftover hurricane's

Furtive rain from the coast

A breeze of drowsiness

In which everything is waking

And starting to breathe again

Intermission in summer's

Grand opera to carry us

Right out of time and space

Which will soon resume

Smiling parenthesis in which we feel

We might really belong on this earth

Prompted Valentine

If all that happens here

The gods have first lived through

And earthly time and space

Are one long deja-vu

If every life resolves to solve

Some grievance of the dead

And inch by inch we turn

To find it waiting up ahead

If rhythmically we stall

And start again like planets

Looking back on other worlds

In the middle of a vowel

Suspended waiting for our cue

Mustn't it all depend on you

Making It Back Valentine

A woman out walking in the wind

Her dog along the river

Finds it hard to look

Directly at that water

Furtive glances shot

Upstream against it

Not to go under

She struggles with the urge

To leap such as one observes

In lovers heading toward disaster

But she stops at her favorite spot

Gathering herself together

And out-stares that river

Doggedly all the way back

Is That You Valentine

Is it the karma of flowers

To suffer through to their colors

Is it the destiny of beasts to bear

So much sadness in their gaze

Is it really the hummingbird's mission

To carve a chink in heaven and dash

Off as if it's nothing

Is it left to the magic of dreams

To rescue our thinking

From this phlegmatic world

And restore our sense of flight

Is it not you who opens

That little door-way beyond death

To touch and console us every night

Remind Me Valentine

I am so dense sometimes 

Only the next day do I think

Of what I really meant to say

But I note it down anyway

Practicing the perfect response

When you remind me of my failures

Going back over how I let you down

Because someone else let me down

Or some such back and forth

And now you want me to believe

No failure can defeat us

Look you say the well

Of love is inexhaustible

From which we drink our fill

Embattled Valentine

Embattled as I am

With my own inner nature

Trying to calm down and stay sane

Entrusted as I feel

With the whole natural world

In which I see myself reflected

The dreaming minerals and lazy

Waving plants the thoughtless

Roaming animal I can be

Encouraged as I often am

By the quiver of your presence

A single leaf moving in the yard

Which must absolutely be there

For it all to make sense

Assumption Valentine

There are still some places

Where they burn the fields of spring

And plant new seeds in the ashes

Is this what we are doing

Burning cities and forests

Throwing another log on the flames

In a twisted kind of self-

Immolation scorching the earth

So those who die in fire

And even the animals and plants

Might be the seeds of hell

Grown into paradise pastures

Called back in another thousand years

To reclaim their native ways

And sing their ancestral chants

Always Valentine

When I see the Verdin visit

The purple flowers in my yard

Which by the way just appeared

One day and spread like weeds

When I watch her poke about

Chirping and feeding on something

Bugs or pollen or drops of dew

I remember you asking me why

Is there always a bird

In your poems how old

That bird must be today

But love now you've gone

That bird keeps coming back

Showing me how to carry on

We Chose Today Valentine

Many nights I have that dream

That starts out fresh and calm

And ends in some catastrophe

I find some new idea there

I'd never think of here

But when I try to bring it

Back with me it crumbles

Papyrus in my hands

Or dark police pursue me

A thief's car chase back

To the crash of waking

Somehow I only find myself

At dawn or twilight

When there is just enough

Light and darkness to hold me

In a momentary peace

Don't Fail Me Now Valentine

Because I doubt I fear

Because I fear I hate

These three dragons I

Myself create

Terrible menagerie of things

I've said and done

I call them to me

And try not to run

I call as well

My Virgil soul

To strain me through

The sieves of hell

The courage that will lead me

To be whole and well

In One Day Valentine

Let's go back to the south of Sweden in 1576

When Tycho Brahe was building

His island 'Castle of Urania'

The first and last of its kind

Until Kepler came to mute

The music of the spheres

Into a hurdy-gurdy song

And the stars were given numbers

Having run out of the names of gods

Shakespeare was still a young man

And wars were everywhere in Europe

In one day the cosmos became a machine

Spawning endless new machines

Among which we now count ourselves

Between Valentine

Do we become our animals

Or do our animals become us

Does the animal in us admire

In them something we've lost

In being what and who they are

When I was a child I thought

The dogs were the men and

The cats were their ladies

It was medieval of me

Spinning a myth of marriage

Another playful religion

I was trying to leap over

That gaping gap between

Animal and angel

Lives And Words Valentine

Every day I try to read

Someone's biography I pick

At random from historical

Or contemporary obituaries

But it's like when I read

The dictionary searching

For the origin of a word

It only leads me to another life

And I have spent the morning

Absorbed in someone else's words

I think we come in cohorts

Each era nothing like the one before

So at first we don't recognize one 

Another and have to be reminded

Of the others always around us

Anecdotal Evidence Valentine

My friend a family therapist

Drove north to spend four days

Searching for his mental health

He took his wife with him who

Had a broken foot in a boot

He took his old ailing mother

Who couldn't stand or walk

And his two beautiful daughters

Four and five and all their things

And of course he had to take

The two dogs one of whom

Was sick and pooped all over

This was as far as he could get

Telling me what happened smiling

Except for the roadside madhouse they found

Where the air was fresh and cool

And how one night it actually rained

And they all lay out on the grass

Feeling finally some peace

Until the gardener sent them packing

And incredibly they all climbed

Back into the car somewhat healed

And somewhat still half-crazy

This Is Just The Beginning Valentine

Because we couldn't face the abyss

The abyss has come to us

While brave archeologists keep digging

Brushing sand from the eyes of the dead

And rocketing telescopes keep probing

The penetralia of endless darkest night

But it's all post-partum now

A child has drawn a line

And we stand amazed

To find ourselves released

On our own recognizance

Afraid hateful full of doubts

Each having to go it alone

At least for a certain distance

If only to prove one can

Migratory Valentine

If you find a murderer

In your family tree or a slaveholder

Or even vaguely some royalty

Or stop to visit an ancient grandmother

A witch of Endor and her brilliant

Daughter Sophie still surviving

In their cottage in the woods

And manage to penetrate their fairytales

Do you finally get to that mountain

Grove of reckoning where your

First family gathered

For their next migration

Hoping you would save them

Climbing on your shoulders

Together Valentine

Hey I'm over here at the grocery store

What do you want me to get

Hey I'm over here among the stars

What do you want me to get

Spring greens and a few avocados

And whatever you want for supper

Bring me that blue galaxy you found

And some word from the Kyriotetes

Hey I can't carry that much

And the store is so crowded

Just grab what you can manage

We'll make a feast of light and salad

As much as I can salvage

From the garden of the night

How Can You Look At Them And Not Valentine

On first looking into the awesome pictures

Floating back to us from deep space

For a moment it felt like spelunking 

Into a dark cave's huge walls

Lit up with ancient paintings

Strange how I felt a little

Claustrophobic at first

And stopped breathing

Without a body to sustain me

The moment of letting go of everything

When you see that it includes yourself

But it passed in amazement and relief

It's not just that there are stars

And galaxies that go on forever

But that somehow they all survive in us

Hans Who Is Everywhere Valentine (for Dave M.)

Hans the stable boy in your story

After he had met the three great minds

And served them the best wine all night

Witnessing their ecstasy and laughter

Was left with the heavy responsibility

Of putting them all to bed

Two of them already deep asleep

The third still mumbling her prayers

Have you ever had to put a drunk

Parent to bed pulled off their coat

And shoes and tucked them in

Then you've seen how wisdom

Is just a foolish child as Hans did

So much for beauty truth and goodness

Hardly capable without him

How Do We Manage It Valentine

It's so compelling to me

That the great minds of history

Are all found at the beginning

With periodically other further minds

Coming to their rescue

Just in time someone is burned

At the stake or a young boy

Is tortured and torn to pieces

So it all moves forward

Body by body their ideas

Of freedom and clarity of thought

Slowly-quickly like a lava-flow

Until a new island emerges from the sea
Back to the beginning of all we know

A Hand Away Valentine

A lot of lightening and a little rain

Much like my over-heated brain

After too much talking fluff and nonsense

I walk down to my imaginary beach

To hear the sentences roll in

The speech of a saner voice

Telling of more important things

Left glittering in the sand

As the red sun goes down

Warning of what's to come

More lightening and a little rain

The storm of my mind just offshore

And you calling to me

Stretching out your hand

Christmas In July Valentine

 If you think of the weather

As part of our collective karma

What do you make

Of this purgatorial summer

That wants to cook the planet

I think of brown eggs bouncing

Boiled hard for dinner

With a piece of burnt toast

I think of laundry frozen on a line

In some long ago winter

Me struggling to take it down

I think of all the cold hearts

In the world at any given time

Yes mine among them and hope

My melting hope might warm them

Artificial Valentine

My intelligence thinks artificial intelligence

Is such a wonderful oxymoron an even

Cleverer golden calf O Moses

A picture of the machine of ourselves

After we extract all the inspirations

Of those who conceived it

Where did those come from

What we could call genuine

Intelligence that makes things up

Out of nothing but air and desire

After all out of some unknown element

Often present in blood and hard work

Which can only get us so far

Till something comes to stir the water

Up Valentine

Sometimes I try to coax

My angel out from behind me

Where I can feel her pushing up

Against the back of my brain

Into that little magic space

Where light turns into thinking

In an unstoppable stream

But she is shy of me

A child I carry on my back

Or an old woman who ghosts me

When I come knocking on her door

Sometimes it feels like that

Then suddenly out of nowhere

She shows up in a single flower

And we can sit and talk for hours

Guardian's Valentine

You who are always peering

Over my shoulders straining

To see the world through my eyes

Giving me the benefit of my doubt

Don't think I don't worry about you

Aren't appreciative of how far back

Our first introduction goes

How much light has been lost by stars

Ascending and descending since then

I imagine you must take vacations

From my traumas from time to time

Don't even think about it I'll be fine

I know our friendship never ends

And I do know where you live

Lizard Hours Valentine

There must five or six of them

By their sizes a small family

Living safely in cracks in the wall

Though I never see them together

The baby one is almost transparent

A skinless flash up the wall

When I water the aloe at night

But the horny hefty daddy emerges

Only during the day darting about

And stopping short to listen

If I have any news at all

Of his reckless profligate son

To share with him though I sense

He knows it's me come back

Unrecognizable but for the nose

The Whole Drama Valentine

After the curtain opened

On a midsummer morning garden

Against a backdrop of leaves on a wall

The audience hushed in darkness

Nothing happened for a while

And then a small bright white something

Floated midair from stage left to right

Moon-like catching the daylight sun

I couldn't tell if it was a petal

Or a moth or a breezy angel

But for several minutes after it had gone

We sat in silence until the curtain fell

Was that the whole drama

The reviews were mixed

Some felt they'd been cheated

While others sat transfixed

Where Is Thinking Going Valentine

For many years now

In my own deconstructionist way

I've tried to study the history

Of thinking its stratification

Into periods of clarity and decay

How it gets submerged at times

And then circles back on itself

For brief interludes of self-awareness

How when it applies itself to itself

It finds something preternatural

And intriguing going on a dialogue

That happens nowhere else in the world

A hidden door that opens

Leading straight to the heart

Breathless Valentine

Are you as blind to me

As I am blind to you

Except you see what's hidden from me

And all I see is your absence

Left to feel my way in the dark

Knowledge of your presence

Real as the invisible becomes

When I can get away from my body

For a few breathless seconds

Or even for whole hours

When we can travel together

On long train rides back to childhood

Or wander off to reconnoiter

The lost cities of the future

Last Day Valentine

On the first day of your death

The 'Do Not Disturb' sign

Fell from your door when

No one was looking

On the second day of your death

I felt you brush past me in the hall

Whispering 'I'll be right back'

On the third day of your death

You stood weeping by the stairs

Showering me with kisses

Saying 'This changes nothing'

On the last day of your death

Whenever it comes you know

I will be ready and waiting

Carried Away Valentine

A morning scan of the heavens

And I focus on just one cloud

That casts its shadow at my feet

And tries to beam me up

Into the light that fills it

And slowly we amalgamate

Into other clouds that find us

Until the whole sky is covered

In a twilit afternoon

Dropping me off in some distant place

Nervous and happy about the long

Walk home nervous I won't find you

Happy because it's raining

And there's a rainbow in my eyes

Where Valentine

Great stone monuments but where

Is the memory of what made them

The words but not what they meant

To the raised voices who spoke them

What they were relinquishing

Of the light so we could harvest

More and more of the darkness

Or that's how they seem to have seen it

At least that's this morning's speculation

For why the monuments were demolished

Or buried deep in deserts and lakes

Or removed to invisible places

Unprobed by science our ailing god

Now we've lost sight of their grail

Untranslatable Valentine

Yesterday I felt heartened to learn

There are an awful lot of jokes and puns

On the walls of ancient graves and temples

Smiles waiting to be exhumed

Buried in the language pictures

The night journey of the sun itself

With a few stops along the way

For quiet reflection or entertainment

Or to visit Osiris's old house

Where language floods the walls

With so much praise and laughter

It all starts to sing and dance

Now all they heard is lost to us

Hiding in our own sarcophagus 

Still wondering what those gods were after

Only Way Valentine

In last night's trauma

Some all-consuming monster

Was advancing on our village

This must have been in the Pleistocene

Everyone screaming and running in terror

But when I looked back

All I could see was a digital clock

Flying toward us through the woods

Surrounded by impenetrable darkness

I almost laughed but that came later

Rushing to rescue my wife and child

Luckily we still had our old Ford truck

And tore off down that dusty road

Our only way to escape was to wake

Closer Valentine

Keep close what you can see and touch

In all that's going on around you

But even closer all you can't

The huge rest you have to envision

Going on in your head and heart

Right now there's a shiny beetle

Crawling through the wet grass

That clarifies a question

I have always had about

The true mission of secrecy

In human lives the enormity

Of what is hidden from us

In the progress of beetles and grass

Which you can clearly see

If you get down on the ground

Not Too Far Off Valentine

While they arrange another rain

Those winged horses of the west

We slip through centuries of stillness

Sweating evenings on the beach

Like waiting for someone to leave

Or arrive from a neighboring star

The irreplaceable to be replaced

Is it only spring that doesn't want

To see us die while dying summer

Takes its vengeance to the end

The clothes ripped from our bodies

Our bodies buried in the sea

Listen you can hear those horses neigh

Circling a new mythology

Birthday Valentine

As beautiful as you have always been

You get more beautiful every year

Not like those perennials we planted

On the farm but never got to see

Those floods of iris in their maturity

That hedge of lilac trees

Blooming a mere few weeks

Your beauty is not ephemeral

Like flesh that thrives and peaks

Somehow it grows more real

More felt more seen more you

And to think my blood lives in your bones

Soul of my soul

Carrying beauty on

Reading For And Against The Wind Valentine

Wind's what's left

When you take away the water

Gusts like going over rapids

Words in little boats

Rollicking and tossed

With some going under

Several villages of vowels

Entirely swept away

But look over there not far

A whole grove of oaks is motionless

Like a crowd that stops to watch

Some small world fall apart

Wave after wave of wind

Smacking the pages in your hands

Until you let them all ascend

How Else Valentine

I'm feeling drops of honey land on my head

Some mornings can get that sticky

I just want to lick and lick them

Suck that sweetness to the pit

How else get to the serious seed

Each morning comes to plant

How else be grateful enough

That the light comes back at all

That every night at the great council

Of lights they vote to return or not

They weigh our collective heart

And consult their medical texts

Arguing mercy over wisdom

And still they decide to come back

Or at least make one more attempt

Children's Valentine

After the seventh full moon went by

Did you not notice that door in the sky

Which I imagined must be there

Outpost of heaven under repair

Or maybe not a hole but an imprint

A seal or a stain of spilled wine

A signal or whispered word

All we can manage to leave behind

We children of the moon

What would we do without our pictures

Of the invisible world

As long as the sun can enter

Fill us and flow through us

We know we're not alone

Rambling Valentine

Me and my dead friends

Who seem more alive than I am

In the morning one at a time

Come for coffee and stay

For the rambling conversation

In which I try to wheedle out of them

The secrets they are sworn to keep

Eternity is such a tease

Look they say if I made it

Anybody can to comfort me

We go back over our charts

Rediscovering the inevitable

Parting of our stars all the way back

To our still undiscovered hearts

Eye On You Valentine

Memory keeps my books

Stern accountant and Sunday painter

In double columns and cloudy skies

But I suspect she's cooking the books

Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul

Or at least she warms them up a little

Always factoring in the future's

Amortization and return on a few

Emotional investments

But she's no economist alone

In fact she's better known

For her scenes of pastoral life

On the walls of empty buildings

So much she keeps an eye on you

Declaration Valentine

No plan is still a plan I'm sorry

It's baked in it's implicit

In life's relentless unraveling

Like you're not sure what

You're knitting you're just knitting

What's starting to look like a tent

Or a parachute while all you know

Is that it isn't finished yet

And you must keep on knitting

Your hands with a lightening of their own

Reaching back and forth to catch

A missed stitch or glance over

At the several patterns you're using

To get this shroud just right

Over There Valentine

In the quiet a dead leaf rises

Scratching his way toward a puddle

Right up to the shore and stops

Pulling himself together with a shrug

Contemplating the softness of that sea

That might yet bring him back to life

Or at least allow for a vigorous sail

It's hard to let reality in

But while he's been crying

That puddle's been drying

Hardly his likeness left

And even the wind has died

His last and only friend

Pointing to a puddle over there

Further Valentine

'Don't grow old' my parents croaked

As usual I didn't listen

But every through-line is different

And maybe we who come to the earth

Are really just heaven's rejects

Ingots thrown back into the fire

In need of further adjustments

Some achieve this in a few quick years

No return address on their unlived lives

While others wrinkle and ripen

Into wonder or rage or both

Lucky those who've saved a few apples

From the tree of life

And kept an in with the Cherubim

When winter brings its ice

The Beginning Returns Valentine

Grasshoppers are dancing in the heat

To some far-off Latin beat

The senoritas of the air

Wear hibiscus in their hair

But no one moves when the lizard

Scurries into the yard

And a distant woman starts to sing

Her favorite beautiful song

And we are wrapped in fear and joy

Hearing together for a while

How the world was made

Funny but it's not you said

With just one harmonica

Sharp as a grasshopper's blade

And rounded off with a smile

Flipping The Calendar Valentine

From cube to plane to line to dot

And back again before I'm caught

The dot I plant above the lower 'i'

When I'm not referring to myself

But why is the 'I' capitalized and

The 'you' is not all the lower letters

Want to know where they stand

In relation to that indefinite pronoun

Which used to be 'thou'

A feeling of deep respect

But from cube to plane you cast off

Your mortal you and start

To touch something more intangible

And then from line to dot

You fade to naught but I

Stray Valentine

She would rather sit in the heat with me

Than sleep on the cool couch inside

Where she would rather curl and snore

Beside me that watch Jeopardy on TV

It's the nearness to me she craves

Always underfoot getting stepped on

And even when she's hungry

Sometimes she defers her food for me

If I'm in another room

But just as easily she can turn

And give me the cold shoulder

Despairing of ever reaching me

Seeing me more clearly than I see

But just as easily she forgives me

My black and white four-legged soul

Just A Question Valentine

How unique do we have to get

How special must we become

Each on our own aggregate earth

Alone but never alone

Isn't it this what frightens us

That we cling too much

To our single lives we forget

That what's going on around us

Is just a picture however colorful

Of our collective conscience

Perforated sometimes by lightening-flashes

That frighten and illuminate

That we are all the same

For Gustav Landauer Valentine

What does it take to be murdered

The retaliation for some deep rejection

What does it take to kill yourself

The retaliation for some deep rejection

Didn't the prodigal go out on his own

At his parent's strong suggestion

They knew his brother wouldn't make it 

They thought the earth out there

Would teach him a lesson

He couldn't otherwise learn

So they equipped him with a secret self

A kind of homing device

Planted in his brain

Until it died and left them

Long nights waiting on the porch

Now Valentine

One hundred pounds of disappointment

I can lift and hold above my head

It used to be fifty or more on a good day

But now I just hoist the cloudy heavens

With one unworried finger

And trust the rain will come

Whenever it needs to

I can settle for one moon

Not yet able to return

I can be happy

With one star's weight

On my heart

As long as it's you

As long as it's me

Every Night The Same Story Valentine

Perfection is profligate

These sleepless summer nights

We sit out holding one another

Everything seems holier more

Mysterious in the darkness

Claustrophobic with stars

Until it makes me want to shout

'Enough! I see you terrible

Monsters in the woods,

Humbaba and the rest.

Soon your dead bodies will lie

At the feet of my love.'

But we move closer quieter

Straining to hear that fairy tale again

Falling asleep before the end

Always Planning Something Valentine

When I look back on the careful planning

It takes a life just to get it here

Safe and sound in the middle of war

I can't help but think of paratroopers

Dropping out of the night

Across enemy lines

In the old newsreels

Which makes me think

Of seeds falling into the dark

Fields of summer

The moon just where

We planned it to be

And just one more town

To loot and burn

Before peace returns

John's Day Valentine

Many of the surviving paintings imply

They grew up together friends

Two boys plotting their escape

In a busy household

Where the women ruled

The fathers worked and worried

And the children were sent to school

And yet one of them became

One of the loneliest figures

In all of history's ruination

And seems to have spent his whole life

In a kind of festival of longing

He who knew from the first

But kept their secret safe

Until the heavens burst

Necessary Valentine

From the focal point I've chosen

Like a viewing-loft up in a tree

I can see the focal point you've chosen

Has the better of me seeing me

Not a likeness but an after-image

I can feel you holding of me

From what of you is so far away

And yet dissolved in me

All weddings are alchemical

In summer we fall off the earth

Like bodies rising from the beach

Floating above on invisible threads

And muffled leisurely conversations

Where only the necessary is said

Love sailing us out beyond the dead

The Course Of Human Life Valentine

I spend half my morning

Thumbing through yesterday's clues

For that one or two moments

When I might have been conscious of you

What only in afterthought

Too late is caught and mended

But now I know you'll be back

In the other half of my morning

As usual striking me dumb

Far from the miracle of speech

Unworried you will come

'It is I' you will say

And only tomorrow will tell

If I was listening well

At The Last Bus Stop Of The Sun Valentine

An enormous traffic jam of feelings

Rush-hours through me these days

A truly Euclidean cast of characters

When I sit and stare at the world

When I try to de-implicate myself

As really just an innocent witness

To all the kindness all the terror

It's just the unreality of it all

The constant dress rehearsal

For a still unwritten play

That drags me back to you

Wind and sun at the water's edge

And you my friend intangible

Body tangible soul

Will The Roses Ever Wake Up Valentine

In the central story

He that stinketh

Of sin and glory

Is given back his faith

He smells of roses now

That resemble wounds

Opening in answer to the sun's

Simple question

What have you done

For me today

Wasn't beauty enough

Did you really have to ruin it

Just to prove you're free

Don't answer brother

Just run to me

What About Losing Everything Valentine

What happens when your phone dies

In the middle of unknown territory

On your way to Grandma's house perhaps

What happens when the sun dies

And you're forced to consider the stars

When the darkness slams you down

Against a tree among ominous sounds

Struggling not to fall asleep

What happens when the sunlight wakes you

On the floor of some abandoned house

Do you rise up shaking off your fears

Lost soul standing at the window like a ghost

I wave to driving past

On some forgotten road

Directions To My House Valentine (for Bruce)

If you follow my winding thread

And go left at the light-filled lake

You'll have time for a few reflections

And there's an empty chapel of trees

Where you can change your clothes

And any one of a number of caves

Where you can make your last confession

But suddenly you'll run out of time

So far I've led you in the wrong direction

But just turn around and hurry through the woods

You'll come to a silent maze of houses

One with the front door ajar but no one there

I will have gone out to find you

And myself gotten lost perhaps

Uncertain of my return

So welcome sit and cool your bones

I've left some water for you on the table

On The Scarcity of Vulnerability Valentine

The strange habits of rabbits

That she would scratch a burrow

In the middle of the yard

And lay her babies there like gifts

To any passing cat or hawk

To have put all her stock in gentleness

A calm defenselessness seems dumb

As the empty tomb she leaves behind

We run to find the bodies gone

Already the grass growing over

Childhood's helplessness again

A fable buried in a breeze

Leftover from another world

Or (feel it) one to come

Finding The Secret Valentine

One time in our book study group

Where we took turns reading a few pages aloud

Our host starting us off in the middle

Of the final chapter she found

She couldn't stop reading

Carefully sounding every word

Except now and then to interrupt herself

"This makes perfect sense!" or "Why

Didn't anyone tell me this?"

Then rushing on to the next revelation

She was breathless at the end

And said she'd had to stop herself

From crying several times

"This changes everything" she smiled

And we in silence couldn't but agree

Emailed Valentine

I meant to tell you yesterday

While we  were on the phone

Talking about the commonness of trauma

And you were telling me about

Your grandson's delicately forming ego

Just then I swear a large yellow

Swallowtail fluttered right up

Beside me and I reached out 

My hand just as you were saying

How beautiful he's grown

How he loves motorcycles

And is working and saving for one

Just as that butterfly landed on my arm

But I couldn't interrupt you then

So strangely I felt us both ascend

Dependent Valentine

It all depends on

How much you want to know

About what's really going on

Behind the scenes behind the stars

The secret histories of strangers and friends

Or the truth of your own nature

Bullied by moods a little crazy

It all depends on

How much compassion

You can incorproate

In your daily routine

And how much 

You can safely ignore

Another Wedding Valentine

On a windy evening just after your wedding

From a fourth floor balcony on the beach

We watched another wedding below

Where the bride after the whispered vows

Pursued by all her young male relatives

Ran across the sand and threw

Herself into the waves so the groom

Could come quickly to rescue her

It was all a planned reenactment

We surmised of some old ritual

When everyone applauded laughing

As they ran up out of the sea

Dripping and shining as if

Absolved of all misery

Far Valentine

When my howling mind needs a full moon

Or bloody bone that it can chew on

I pick a magic phrase or random piece

Of bird-song to fasten on

Repeating it over and over

Until it takes on a life of its own

And a picture starts to form

Of total darkness a warm

Soup of infinite movement

At the farthest outpost of myself

Where I am nothing and no one

But where you might be waiting

With a cup of cool water

And a smile on your face

You source of all kindness

Having traveled so far

The Future's Goal Valentine

What is my strategic plan

For the next five/ten years

Given the lack of control I exercise

Over what goes on around me

Or especially what occurs inside me

But I can still strive to practice

Out of my sustaining helplessness

A sense of confidence in the future's

Goal to forgive the past

It wants so much to move on

Its goal must be to understand and love

All that keeps it from its goal

Of ever deeper understanding

Of this deeply suffering world

Grown Valentine

Like that girl or boy who believed

Fruits and vegetables grew at the grocers

Who had never seen an actual

Carrot seed and what becomes of it

Or yanked one from sandy ground

And bit and chewed its sweetness

Starving on some hazy morning

So we think we just showed up

On this earth and weren't grown

And tended by sturdy beings

With hoes and rakes and hardened

Hands and still they hope

To harvest us and sit out under the trees

Having saved all the seeds

Mockingbird's Valentine

That spirit alone is

That spirit alone is here

On a mission of matter

Out of fire and water

Through the mockingbird's air

Come Cherubim and the common

Hard-working angels and demons

Fluttering in our brain-cages

That spirit alone creates

Passing in and out of matter

I ignore at my peril

That the breath survives the breather 

That spirit exhales in matter

And then breathes it all back again

In The Country Air Valentine

I believe there is a whole civilization

Built up around cutting grass out here 

Not a single rainless day can go by

Without that hum of blades

That fresh froth in the air

So you can smell it in your sleep

And the lawns are huge and run

Right up to the edge of the woods

Which look impenetrable and cool

Separating the large and small

And abandoned houses from one another

Some have chickens some ponies or goats

But most have given up on a garden

Preferring to shop in town

And tend their perfect lawns

Ancient History Valentine

In the Fourth Punic War

Of the hummingbirds

It was red-throated

Hansel the Younger

Who triumphed momentarily

Though his throat

Wouldn't stop bleeding

He would beat no retreat

I believe his folks eventually

Settled somewhere in Kentucky

Miners and drinkers and fiddlers

Fierce and kind living off the land

A people who went to church

And worked hard as hummingbirds

Our Interview With The Stars Valentine

From here love the stars

Are always falling mostly

Forward sometimes back

While we are standing still

Watching them race past

Their circuits clearly

Marked out for them

While ours wander

All over the place 

Sometimes deviating into

Our own black holes

But right now love 

The stars are falling

Their invisible snow

A light that is always

Just starting out while

We are standing very still