Spring poems

April and May 2013

Watching the inmates

The open page takes

everyone, just as they are.

Heads bow. Words begin.

**

By example—a haiku with commentary

Like leaves pulled by winds

hold tight to branched extensions

of roots holding firm.

Even before our fingers form, culture

begins to show us how—but different grips

are possible--some even letting go.

**

Wonder:  heart freed of thinking.

Calculation stretched to snapped

does not prevent fulsome release

for those who’ve come to see

the more

that makes it

what it is.

**

Dove calls alone

in early light.

Clocks pulse

the empty kitchen.

Reflection gifts

ever-embracing space

and silence.

**

Somehow the first of May has come and gone

a mark on a calendar unremembered 

much like myriad single breaths thoughtlessly taken

then given away that pass nonetheless

through traceless minutes’ days—but for that

slight attentive pause, just there passed.

**

Days stretch in summer,

lighted lingering coming

slowly to night stars.

**

Chanting Buddha’s name

Unfathomably vast a matrix of realms of truths

carries our each and every muttering—resonant thereof.

**

Coastal grasslands, swelled prairie bluffs,

tales of ancient oceans outlasted.

**

Saint Francis, oh, Saint Francis,

how many, many times your

image has moved me.

Your saintly qualities though,

they’re human,

aren’t they.

**

It took some time

to see the time

to preach

is done—so let

the poems come.

**

While some words say,

         poems do,

participate, engage.

Written or read,

        spoken or heard,

poems move…

**

What part of nothing more to do isn’t clear? Snakes,

over time, leave their skin behind. The screen-door

out to the back porch, it slams every time—mornings,

over coffee, I write; evenings burn incense and chant.

**

You

swoop in

like a boardwalk gull

to snatch up guarded bits

of joy…

then lift off

in dust and tufts

of disregard

for those

who would but share,

not swallow.

Sad.

So, so sad.

**

Altar incense burns

a barely visible thread

of tenuous tie

to tradition

nearly faceless

save the solidity of voice

and so we mutter and chant

and sing affirmations of foundations

of living breath.

**

Soft pink streaks sky clearing clouds to blue.

Garden flowers toll stillness.

**

No one to wake

at this hour,

the barking dog

celebrates

with everyone

within ear-shot;

even passing cars slow 

to hear

and not break

this living stream

rarely heard

as music.