4 untitled VALENTINE POEMS (see Hikmet poem)

I'm stuck, this rock, this tree
His voice like smooth stone
The way water follows

its predestined course
We go walking on the headlands
trying to find the summit 

for the heart is always 

hovering like a hawk

Hunter's eye seek small clues 

in the grass.

15 February 1995

I didn't know I loved the way 

his eyes repeated the color 

of weathered stone.
Or how, unlike stone, they soften 

into the clouds when he smiles.

Or the way his son's eyes
are summer skies.
Sometimes I see
how the division begins 

in darkness when we 

pull our hearts in from old pastures.
I'm afraid of the eventual loss 

that always comes. 

Sometimes I think too, 

that my heart is something 

I can protect, but like with death, 

it cannot be saved.

February 15, 1995

The trouble with unrequited lust 

under a full Valentine's Day moon 

is that one is liable to develop 

carpal tunnels syndrome in both wrists.

February 15, 1995


With careful steps anyone can find 

the center of the heart.
Waves keep crashing against the rocks;

disturbed swallows rise like dark clouds 

before the storm, making me believe 

the heart is always hard to approach.

February 15, 1995




I recycled all of these in a longer poem
I DIDN'T KNOW I LOVED—after Hikmet