Scattered, then found—poems

October 2012

With stars

for companions, 

what standard of measure

might one ever devise

that ever really

measures up ?

**

Is it that light lays on leaves

and catches, or that light is caught,

that it dapples?

**

Like the lightest of breaths,

held so as not to disturb,

moon beams breathe on me.

**

Everything this morning speaks of space

—the gray sky swept aside for blue, the moon

rests high, showing just  a sliver;

clustered crows, barking dogs,

allow only echo; even curbside grasses

give way to beige.

**

Gina

Young, bright,

not overly certain,

eyes like sky

radiate promise

that fills all that befalls

their gaze.

**

For the grand daughter, Kawayan

Only twenty-four

hours past its fullest face,

the moon begins to “melt.”

I suppose this is

Indian Summer—long heat

over shortened days,

windows kept open

through silver-tinged darkness,

the kind of light

that shimmers

on high mountain juniper

that grow out of rocks

that glow like you do,

even as we speak

of the moon.

**

Out of the clamor

and confusion,

Buddha’s Name

blossoms…

Namuamidabutsu

**

Mid-October

Leaves, browned and fallen,

pack along the streets like doormats

thrown outside to be washed

in first winter rains.

But for now, still summer,

an invisible sun streaks breaking clouds

in soft pink, turns the tallest eucalyptus 

to shadowy, swaying silhouettes.

**

Orion is directly overhead

this morning—what direction

is that, Heaven ?

A dead mouse

on the shadowed walk

is really a leaf, parched and curled.

That adult over there

is my child, is loved, loves

and is torn—you’d think

that would be enough

to find the way from here.

You’d think.

**

Preparing for the service

with the old folks,

reading the poems of Ryokan,

wondering

if he’ll warm their hearts

as he has mine.

**

Shadows play, breezes weave,

through grasses dancing

with flowers.

**

My religion

From the street side

         of the courtyard fence,

beyond the flowering shrubs,

         in lifting fog,

children’s voices pass

         through the lingering mists,

pulled by a bell—

       

reaching,

         listening.

**

She don’t bite, he said,

and neither do I; but how

were we to know ?

September 2012

September Poems

I think of recluse masters a century away,

I nurture your secrets. Your true nature

eludes me here, but taken by quiet, I can

linger this exquisite moon on out to the end.

                                            T’ao Ch’ien

Preparing for my 69^th in the Sierra,

Freemont Lake at 8,000 feet

Leaning against the rocks,

wondering at the movement of the years

and the certainties gathered here—ablutions

on a bouldered slope, chanting in trees

in the coming dark, in the unfolding entirety

of the life I’ve known as my own.

I write, but poems don’t find the page. So I listen

for the wind, for trees turning to shadow, for the stars

to signal of sky life

as clearly as I hear the waters 

on the shores of this lake.

And they come,

one, then another, and another

of that silence so ancient, so subtle

that time can’t capture, nor distance determine

the closeness so thorough

as only a poem

can know.

And I’m here, so I write, in the headlamp’s light.

As a breeze from the lake lifts the edge of the page,

I’m here, so I write.

**

Day three

We hike the lake’s perimeter today,

first the overlooking outcrops,

nearly a thousand feet above,

then descend

to slow-walk, explore and fish.

As we rest in the shade, from among the pines

on the other side, an aspen waves,

its yellow wave.

**

Evening prayers

Clouds streak pink,

westward peaks shadow,

the lake grown still

and soundless—we speak

of the sacred, of the day, of early departure,

then slip into our bags for the night—

on a scrape of rock, aside a mountain lake,

in a sea of slow-turning stars.

**

I’ve learned much from the scholars,

and stand indebted as such, but it’s been the poets

who’ve taught me to watch

the misted push of ocean air

along this drift of ridge, through the window

of the place we’ve together built and call home.

**

Morning comes gray

with heavy fog,

Saturday sounds

from the street out front.

Sluggish, as well as

the usual foolish,

I pad around bare-foot,

looking for my favorite cup.

To write something new,

or prepare a few of the old

for the world at large—indecision,

that old friend

suggests both.

So here I sit, over a cup of coffee,

celebrating sixty-nine years

with a song.

                     9/29/12