This living…
June--July 2013
In the end, there is no answer,
only song—songs of momentums
of moments of resonance,
passing.
**
Awake
It’s not so much that “I thought”
but my thinking was such
that my living was so
that the world as it was
seemed a constant nuisance,
endlessly interrupting, forever
intervening in the story
in my mind.
Then one day, it got through.
And now I see the reverse is true.
**
Voice rides breath that ride winds that ride
seminal vibrations that sound—say the teachers:
follow just one thing, all the way through.
**
the depths of the working of breath
may only be discerned by mind made quiet
as it follows where it leads
**
Voice of course is breath embodied,
breath, the wind’s wish for a rounded earth,
whispered amongst myriads of limbs.
**
Poems in morning
And in morning’s quiet,
the house still, is only the chill
that drifts, that lets the window opened
feel the pass of night, feel the blessings
bared and at rest in the calm
of the heart at home.
**
the density…
of lived experience is such
that moments of clarity and calm
are like quiet clearings
stumbled upon in the wilds
—a bit of a stretch
to claim too much credit
**
Attending
After a long absence,
returning to work the garden
—it all comes back.
**
A scattering of haiku—for Fritz,
thinking of transition
Fallen leaves make the earth.
Ideas, seasoned by light,
cushion every step.
*
Mature growth, rich life:
always in proportion to
how well we let go.
*
Cautionary: trees
sometimes hold their leaves too long—
like us, still survive.
*
Age gifts pure practice,
ready or not. No cushions,
no bells. Only change.
*
Even seclusion
is in relation—how else
to breathe, but for leaves.
**
In the meadows of Lyell Canyon, Yosemite
July 2013
Promise floats in the air here, lean, immediate,
without presumption; and this high mountain dirt,
rich, abundant meadows spread wild with color
for any who will come this far.
Chanting ancient songs across these meadows looking out
at glacier-covered peaks, seems more than just appropriate,
more
like an act of the wind, itself lifting voice above the
stream,
through the grass, into the pines and along the rock-faced
ridges
at rest at the gates of heaven.
Humility sprouts in all who plant their feet here, even for
awhile,
unfolding on the breath before thought, as natural a grace
as the cloud-traced contours of distant glaciers,
wind-blown, light filled shadows
passing among myriads of hints
of healing and wholeness.
**
Mornings
he sits at the altar,
incense wafts,
breath settles, light falls,
wonder unfolds
to sustain
like the pulse of the out-stretched hand
that pulls forth the praise that follows the prayer
that opens the heart,
that gentle persistence, the softest scratch
that pulls each page, as it pulls each breath,
to the fullness of its turning.
**
July 4th
The Big Dipper,
large and low in the North.
Here in the South, we too get up
in the dark, to pee.
