JOHN VALENTINE - POEMS

I live and work in Savannah, GA, where I teach philosophy at a local college. I've had several poems published in journals such as The Sewanee Review, Southern Poetry Review, The Midwest Quarterly, and Mudlark. I've also had six chapbooks of poems published.

The Rich Man -after Seamus Heaney

Breaking down, the old armature’s
centrifugal, starting its
diaspora to dust. Enough time
and everything falls. You’ll
only have a satchel of memories.
This is what they mean
by winter. And cold. But look at the
cartwheel of coins. Put your
ear to the ground, hear the murmuring
water, resurrection of roots.  
Take the holy in your hands. Wrap
yourself in grace,
the sacramental stars, the gifting moon.
Look deeper. You are
like a rich man entering heaven
through the stirring 

of a seed.

​

Sandhill Cranes, Savannah

Tidal estuaries. Migrating visitors
in a relentless kiln.
This quiet pond, though, an oasis
of relief. Its peaceful 
shade contagious and cool as they
spread their wings 
in silence. Semaphore of the fan dance.
Maybe mating. Or gossip. 
No matter. Dignity and grace 
understood, shared.
We watched for a week how they
preened, how they lifted
and landed without a ripple. Noiseless.
What is the world
if not a stopping point, a moment
in passing? One day,
deep in the shadows of the wind
they were gone.

​