Undercurrents

New Orleans

The surface noise, at times tends too much

to distraction, tends, over time, for someone

like me, to tire—it’s the more

that keeps me coming back, the currents

that make the music and the dance

more than just a party. It’s the folks,

who will meet your gaze for no better reason

than your presence on the street—you get

greeted,

if you’re willing, you be noticed

with a nod, no matter the time of day.

It’s the genuine pull

of people toward one another,

hence toward you.

It’s the pull, that the people here go with,

that they don’t ignore, the deep pull of the true

and real that carries

all the rest—just like the river.

**

And of memories?

The thin curve of moon shoulders high,

keeping distance from the chill above the water,

some thirty degrees lost in the night.

A freighter shadows in the dawn,

the lighted tug groans, and the river, well,

the river continues—named or unnamed,

histories carry through waiting horizons,

under open skies and into nights of crystal-

chilled stars—nothing really ever lost.

**

The sun rises

among the sketch of clouds

just there behind where

the Mississippi bends,

but I can’t tell

if New Orleans is waking

or just now

heading for bed.

**

Even at this age…

It can’t be said enough how many times of late

I’ve used that phrase—even at this age—which suggests

of course, aging, aging advancing as against attitudes

and needs that have not too, moved along.

So here it is, a vow as such, to let the search

for reasons, for answers and plans, to here let all that

go—I’m here, right now, so,

as the masters were wont to say, I write,

sometimes chant or sing or dance, here, so walk

rivers’ edges, gaze grandchildren’s eyes, hold hands

with the wife and generally follow

the tangle of heaven and earth and my nature,

however and wherever it all unfolds.     

Amen.

**

Life really is about the spaces in between—it’s not nothing,

but something you cannot see, except by what it’s doing.

Like the fog this morning, like a veil-covered face—moonlight

shimmers the only sign of breath.

**

Streaks in the sky, south and west,

clear light despite early mists.

And the scent of fall

that comes of the crush

of crumpled leaves, that speak

of the last of their turn, this time.

**

The stretch of the eternal

cannot be heard in entirety,

thus leaving behind

the silence

within which we can hear

all that’s held in time.

**

Tides of miniscule movements, most unseen,

often missed, though sometimes not,

is where the poet works—

      what does this blossom

      on this apricot tree know

     

      about this late-November

      that I do not?

**

A day with no fresh air

is not yet

a day.

What if

you wake up

outside?

Well, that

goes without saying.

**

And still counting…

Awhile back, I cleared my shelves of titles

I knew in my heart I’d not return to, or for that matter,

those that hadn’t held my attention long enough

to have taken too much space for too long a time

on a shelf like mine—took’m down to the county jail,

where men with extended terms reside,

where books are read and re-read, re-cycled

hand to hand, and talked about—great life for books,

for words otherwise collecting dust, uncomplainingly

doing the work they’ve been cut to do, and maybe,

maybe even more—which is maybe the point, 

you might ask, they’re prisoners after all, but who

among us has not been there

before—the point is like butterfly wings

and weather patterns—everything’s linked,

everything matters, everything counts—each word

every time—and the best we can do is do them

as right as we can,  keep them out there,

keep them counting.

                                  

                               Cid Coreman:

                                   “I count syllables

                                         because every

                                               syllable counts.”

Places further east--November 2014

After two nights of rain,

leaves in bushes along the road

gleam with the grey of dawn.

Bouquets of closeness,

wordless offerings for all

who belong, tasted

as certain as signals

from home.

**

Groundwater—a cautionary tale

Groundwater, not on, but under,

squeezed into the rock beneath, deep

reservoirs of reserve, some say

some ninety-five percent

of global fresh water supplies,

rapidly depleting—as so say

the satellites, of all things,

which like us cannot see

beneath the crust, but can be

and are, as are we, influenced by

gravitational pull—mass or its lack,

the latter being tracked

on screens —red splotches,

deepening red splotches of absence

growing beneath the world’s

breadbaskets—take note…

take note, grandchildren: oil is fool’s gold,

always was. So don’t be a fool

and don’t follow none.

**

There is no shortage of flags here in Nashville,

and patriotic sentiments are offered often

and spontaneous in public places.

I chose not to be recognized for my service,

such as it was. But did stand for those

they wished to honor.

“You can wave your flag,”

a twinkly-eyed old friend once said, 

“if I can wave mine.”

Only when it stands on both-and,

does either-or work

for everyone.

**

Nashville

We dined last night at the Palace—saloon

or club, you choose. But a vibrant venue

for what our waitress called classic country.

One song told of a bend in a river.

And while walking this morning I realized

we’re staying at such a place—the road itself

is named for it, Pennington Bend.

And I wonder at the sensibilities

that take such things as significant enough

to take note of them as such.

Lives turn where rivers bend, I suppose.

Clearly a tongue does, that then turns

and rounds its words

to flavor both place and people,

who then in turn choose their words

and how and where they’ll be told.

**

Our first morning here opens

a whisper of pink under high grey light

that shutters, slants, then quietly illumines

recollections of childhood

in rural New Jersey

transitioning to suburbs—a time, as a kid,

unquestioned, free.

It’s the stretch and roll of Tennessee landscape

that calls—leafy forest, occasionally broken,

wide swaths of farm land encircled by woods,

all of which then, there, was incrementally

being surrendered.

But what did we know? We played

war with dirt-clods from development work sites,

bicycled bare-headed on unpaved roads

and ranged those woods with few restrictions

beyond being home on time for supper.

I’d bike over to the Crow’s down the road,

for the entire day. The eldest, my friend, had

younger brothers, and a little sister, I think.

And two wildly vicious dogs,

always held barely in check by long chains

they dragged across earth made permanent dust

about them—I see now that the dogs were frantic

to guard something already gone—un-worked farms

and chicken coops long empty.

We’d inch past the dogs on our way to the coops

to play Cowboys and Indians, standing on the roofs

in the sun, backs to the woods, looking out

over weed-filled yards,

cap guns and make-shift bows,

unabashedly proclaiming our exploits.

We changed roles readily those days. They were

already Indians, of course, the Crows; and I,

I was already white. But what did we know,

what did we know, but to play?

**

William Everson…

poet, then religious Brother,

then again religious and a poet, once said

“A religious man without a religion is in trouble.”

He favored in the end personal liturgy over public

and saw our life in language as a gift of the race, the gift

through which reflection takes place, the gift

given back through the words it gave—at its best,

a matter of thanks, a matter of grace.

He proselytized, but only the importance of awe,

of our awareness of its movements in us 

in the ordinary course of our day to day,

the groundswell of awe that pushes our words

to places we’d not imagined to go—which for some

will speak to the mystery and rush of the religious,

and for others is itself religion enough…

    

      wintered leaves

      fall from trees

      already barren,

      spinning akimbo

     

      through the air

      to the ground

     

      on the banks

      of the river

     

      Cumberland.

**

Found in the poems of Korean poet, Ko Un

“Yet the coming of spring is no repetition.”

A statement of the how

of our lived experience, before

manipulation, before abstraction,

continuing newness,

which when carefully considered,

naturally engenders

a muted pause of tribute.

**

After Ko Un’s, “October 19”

Time dropped away

without a whisper,

walls crumbled and fell,

and he stepped

ankle deep in the dust

of the bones of the ancients.

Their songs could still be heard,

but all he could do

was hum—they’d taken their words

when they’d gone,

leaving only the poems

behind.

This, I think,

is where we are today. 

After talking with the poets

What are the chances, even in a small town,

of meeting the only car that moves on the street

at 4:30 AM, at just the driveway it wants,

and it having to wait

for you to pass. And a block beyond,

to meet another solitary walker

coming down the stairs you’re going up,

passing so close your sleeves brush—

who would guess, even in a small town,

in this world how close we all really are ?

                                                  

                                                10/20

**

Robert Lax says attention is holy

and that’s why we all want it.

And why perhaps, when we attend

to the direction our own attention has turned,

we’ll likely find our way

to where we’ve wanted to be

all along—it’s its own light.

**

Trying too hard to sing tires the heart.

Just hum—it’s still song…

                                                           10/21

**

To speak of god

is not to speak

as something separate,

but as heat rising moments

of touch, smell and tongue,

as sighted currents of light heard,

as thought-breathed sparks of awe

spoken as praise.

                                10/23

**

A love story…in words

that might be said, but need not

in the end meet the air

between your eyes and mine.

                                                10/25

**

“Who needs community”

raises question to statement

made to oneself

in solitude.

**

Calistoga

There’s more sky here than at home,

so light thins later, lamps lie latent

through rain-filled clouds

and the day stretches the pen’s strokes

beyond imagined returns

to turn fallowed textures of the known

to futures refusing definition.

                                                  10/25

**

To Lew Welch

This ring of bone,

this life of song

indeed suggests

no notes ever

gone wrong,

all that issues,

pure sacred name

received.

                            10/31

End poem, by Lew Welch, American poet

I saw myself

a ring of bone

in the clear stream

of all of it

and vowed

always to be open to it

that all of it

might flow through

and then heard

“ring of bone” where

ring is what a

bell does

But that was yesterday...

Even in Croatia, the day composes

the poet-scribe—and translation, well,

that seems to come of its own.

                                     9/1

**

The isle of Korchula—4 AM

The wife slips out of bed

to meet church bells.

One for each hour

enters the air-conditioned hum

to flicker unsatisfactorily.

Answers fail confused complaints

and sleepless dreams

surround the darkened waves

of empty space, everywhere.

Nothing touches of home.

                                                          9/3

**

Budapest—the date on my watch

rolls and clicks, so it must be so.

Through the lobby doors,

past the old men in the park,

crows hold place in towering limbs,

crouched and muted shadows,

shuddering rains.

                                             9/14

**

Prayer and gratitude—

and do I find them again

or they again find me

in heart-felt folds,

on lips and breath

that say yes…

             

**

Of current events

and where to turn

in a world such as this

today…but to that concert

of singular heart beats…

**

9/16

At home, after weeks away, fits

like skin rediscovered.

**

Looking at 71—even at this age,

startled by my own shadow.

                                                    9/20

**

Look long

into the night sky

before saying alone

aloud—and even then,

if asked, I’d say

OK to that.

**

Mists clear with the coming light.

Morning prayers, the soft rush of breath

made whole for the world at large.

**

As a young man, I didn’t fully appreciate

how the music moves on its own,

how despite misplaced apprehensions,

songs were there all along.

**

10/8

After Ko Un

Early autumn leaves.

Will I dance too,

when I leave?

**

Indian Summer

We watch each other

across the courtyard

in the front of the house,

the hummingbird and I,

where shadows

first begin to stretch

beyond the reach

of the day’s sun.

**

Why poetry ?

Because of the way the words spill

to leave in their wake intimations

of insights gleaned from where

they have come, from where

they themselves have been.

                                “…if poetry is life, and I believe it is…

                                           when the words come, I trust

                                               they’re the right ones.”

                                                                                Robert Lax

**

Krishnamurti believed

we should write

our own sutras.

I’ve come to see

how right

that is.

**

Simply, to communicate.

Not to argue, nor convince,

but to simply communicate, simply.

                                                           10/17

Dinky Lakes

Dinky Lakes Wilderness,

Sierra National Forest   Mid-August 2014

Late, in the warmth of the bag,

a thin volume of poems

in high country

—eyes still wide,

abandoning the words

of the ancients,

I turn to my back

to return the gaze

of the waiting

sea of stars…

**

John Muir calls the Sierra, the “range of light,” and so it seems. At 1:00 AM,

the Big Dipper spills southward, luminous dusts of the Milky Way scour the dark

and the moon casts light through the quiet pines, just enough for me to rise and pee.

          Unpremeditated…

          take again the given winds

          that fold the syllabled words

         

          to where the earth and the sky

          and water and fire 

         

          come to speak and to mean…

               “Deep in the woods, unknown to the world,

               A bright moon comes and shines on me.”

                            

                                     from Wang Wei’s (?701-761),  “Bamboo District’s Lodge”

**

Directions to the cabin

at Boulder Creek    August 24, 2014

Leave Highway #9 to the right,

on Prospect:

climb the canyon’s walls

to where the reach of trees circles

a cache of sky so clean

Heaven need only let go

to find its way.

Where Heaven and Earth meet.

That’s it.

**

Scatterings

Be receptive.

We are never not receiving.

It is never not reciprocal.

That's all.

**

8/29

I can tell you only of my experience and even that is suspect. A dream

within a dream, Dogen said—and our contemporary, Ko Un, living openly

in his native Korea, cautions: inclinations

toward the ‘much more’ that lies beyond imagination, that too:

a dream known as ‘greed.’

**

9/18

At 5 A.M. the streets are still, empty but for lamp-lit shadows

that seem to accept, without protest, every soundless passing, low-looking clouds

the only ones to leave a trace.

**

10/4

In a place with tools that are used,

worked for the fun, for the joy,

where order is not overly so.

A space of movement, sweat and smiles,

of lingering scents of incense and bells,

the hum of human lungs

and that silence that surrounds

the settled heart.

**

9/29

to Robert Lax then

and to the solitary work

of this solitary mystic poet

of the Isle of Patmos,

unselfconscious model

of charity and grace, received

and the nature of play as prayer

that comes of that.

The work is ourselves,

the dance our living with others

and the foundation the music

that makes it all so.

**

10/5

Life-death has its own reason.

May today and all that it is

bring us closer, clearer…

Summer 2014

after Jane Hirshfield…

 From “The Tongue Says Loneliness”

 As this life is not a gate, but the horse plunging through it.

                      

Yes Jane, “the tongue says”

   but “does not feel” what is said,

“cannot feel” longing, greed, joy,

   cannot but form the sound

as sign that points. But there is

   the speaking, is there not,

that rising foundation of the felt

   that forms the bell

that sounds what’s heard

   by who we are—this life then,

  

is it not gate

      as horse plunging through…?

                                                        8/9

**

John Muir Wilderness 8/1

In the evening of the last day in the mountains, the chill

settles early on the water’s surface, the winds continue,

sun descends, shadows rise.

Light stays the slivered rocks along the ridge, clouds

perimeter, trail and streak, and we sit on a stump,

hours before the first of the stars, staring.

In the face of our own impatience, the given lesson

of no expectations, no demands, the lesson of matter-of-fact

acceptance simply manifests,

so true to itself

as to eclipse all need

of name.                       

                                           

**

Is it distraction then

when three yellow-petalled flowers

grab attention, when irritations release

in the flow and fold of incense smoke,

in calligraphied swirls of praise,

and following eyes find final rest

in faces of wood-fingered Buddhas,

who sign to all who pass that all

is OK—is this distraction then,

or something else at play ?

                                                               8/7

**

When shadows begin to lengthen,

we are reminded of earlier warmths

summarily rejected, now blithely refusing

belated regrets.

                                            8/1

**

Woodchuck Lake—JM Wilderness

Night does not hurry this time of year,

so days linger through the hours

long past the time the first stars arrive,

as if, for only a while,

to taste of this part of the planet’s life.

It’s a glad time, bare of pretence,

where every patience is requited,

where all promises ever dreamed are delivered

and the grip of every secret feels comfort enough

to let go.

                  

**

The nature of freedom…how it is, or might be…

to reside, as it were, at the edge

of a majority of possibilities,

all as yet untried…

**

Life is never less than,

but always fully accommodates

the fullest capacity of every circumstance,

ever-filling the furthest limits,

calling out from there…

**

Last night

just before falling into sleep,

a glimpse

of the gentle arc of peace

that hovers,

of tidal shifts, and the rise

of appreciation.

                                 8/11

                      --To enjoy life’s immensity,

                             you do not need many things.

                                                   Ryokan

**

End Note

From Jane Hirshfields’s poem,

            “When Your Life Looks Back”

    When your life looks back—

    as it will, at itself, at you—what will it say?

    ….

    “This,” your life had said, its only pronoun.

    “Here,” your life had said, its only house.

    “Let,” your life had said, its only order.

    ….

    “Mortal,” your life will say,

     as if tasting something delicious, as if in envy.

    Your immortal life will say this, as it is leaving.

June and July 2014

Just remembered that

trying to write meaningfully

is already a failure of trust;

just being awake here speaks

all the meaning there is,

letting go,

the only must.

**

Fernandez Trail, Ansel Adams Wilderness

A cirque is a three-sided, glacier-carved bowl

that holds a high mountain lake that holds in its face

reflections of the sheered stones that make it so.

No one here says mountains don’t speak, nor lakes

whisper back—birds know, trees hear

rippled reflections

pass on the lips of resident winds.

**

6/22

Summer Solstice

Our first backpacking trip of the season

begins at Clover Meadows in the high Sierra

at just over seven thousand feet,

a walk on the year’s longest day 

that draws on all of our reserves, all of our resolve,

only to deliver a stunning display of stars

for a late night supper

and a long, dreamless sleep.

**

6/23

Lady Lake 8,500 ft.

Thresholds crossed are worlds re-seen

from places we’re often unaware we’ve arrived.

But not here. Unawareness has no place

in a place like this, where, having come,

being seen is a given, and being seen as having come

is itself re-seeing.

**

On the bluff above Chittenden Lake 9,400 ft.

The quiet founded in thin air and high thriving rock

is as complete a refuge as one will find, itself the answer

to the mystery—given all the effort, why we continue

to return, but to again be taken in.

**

Things that will last…

after Kenneth Rexroth

We spend our last day and night

at the Madera Creek junction,

where the Fernandez Trail meets

the Walden in the flat

among the lodge pole pines

at the end of a valley meadow

that runs aside the creek below

a towering volcanic formation

studded with twisted juniper pine,

a small meadow

traced with quivering aspen,

low-growing buckwheat, wild flowers,

butterflies and humming birds.

The creek is lined with willow and lupine

and filled with hungry trout.

But for the creek and woodpeckers

and when wind, the trees, it’s quiet.

How to be here is a matter of who you are.

The place absorbs all who come, goes on its own way

when we’re gone, needing no prophets to tell it so. 

**

6/29

Some turns crinkle, even bind

just a bit, some go so smooth

the view is the only proof

of change—change being

the nature of nature, notions of sameness

are inherently false limitations

risen from simple inattention.

**

7/5

For lack of paper and brush,

that Zen-struck poet, Ryokan,

is said to have practiced calligraphy

in the air—sweeps of soundless poems

spewed out on the restless tongue

of wind-filled skies.

**

Appreciation

is the gift of recognition

properly received.

**

Of most importance

is where the foot that’s risen

will fall.

**

the third way

to cultivate…

to live-listening

to the world and to what

it is waiting to be…

**

7/25

Unquantifiable…

Skin, under the touch

of wind, of sun, under loving eyes…

The presence of turning

to another’s needs—having been useful…

The thought of the sound

of the grandchild’s voice, remembrance

of the name…

The glint of rising sun

bringing the final line of the poem

home…

**

7/26

Sneaking out under the blaze of late afternoon sun,

ocean fogs run the length of the ridge,

white flags of promise of relief,

evidence of the possible

seeding shifting undercurrents, windows,

cupped and readied for release…

New poems

Poems 2014

Late April

The window in the room where my books stay, where eveningtimes

I chant, is the only in the house that faces east, looking out across the street

to homes at rest on a slope that rises a hundred feet and more,

so the direct touch of east-coming sunlight happens only during this time

of long arcs of high sun, and even then only for a few minutes easily missed

for their quiet, unassuming passing.

But for those who attend, the season offers more, 

for as the sun drops to the last of its arc and begins to fill the horizon,

the west-facing windows on the eastern slope across the way

catch this final light and cast it back again in luminous moments

of shadow gold mosaic that glide and stroke their way through the room

like the vision of a lover’s breath leaving a departing kiss.

**

It’s not that I think

this is center universe,

but that nothing

ever goes by unnoticed,

except that

I think it does.

**

Their opinions…

strongly held or just passing,

are no more worthless

than our own,

good friend.

**

Slowly thinking, I see…

it’s only those movements true

to the human heart

that sustain —the poem

is not words, Buddha

not a name.

**

A prayer for Buddha Day, April 25, 2014

After days of unrelenting winds,

of trailing leaves and limbs, this morning

contains its breath in that slender light

before the coming sun

to lend itself to the single stalk,

the singular petal, to blossom 

standing alone

and to whisper to each

its name—Buddha, Buddha, Buddha...

Namuamidabutsu, Namuamidabutsu, Namuamidabutsu…

**

6/2

Opening the kitchen cabinet door

to find the heart at rest

is not a matter of finding more, 

but seeing deeper, clearer detail

that reveals the more already there

—like the sudden sight of dust alight

on air gone gold on sun gone down

that strikes a light behind the eyes

inside the heart

where space and time and ordinary place

are made to be known anew.

**

6/3

Because the streams of light

that touch the hand that holds the pen

that glints the words that glide the page

to scratch a smile to lips then kissed

by morning’s prayer.

**

Opening

the door lets

in the air

whatever

it carries:

be careful.

**

Refuge

to retire, to retreat

to where Saturday or Monday are enjoyed

for no more than their sound

when spoken aloud: morning, waking, light.

The scratch of bird feet at roof’s edge,

your breathing—silent rivulets bob petals

open along the outside sill—the fluttered shadow

of last night’s dream come home,

the promise of stillness fulfilled.

**

California’s Natural History

Even at an age of ten to twelve million years,

scientists think of California’s Sierra Range as young,

still gaining in height and maturity—how silly then

for me ever to feel too old to walk its trails,

to think of my growth

ever being even near finished.

**

6/9

The spider web

outside the window

whispers with streams

that even bamboo leaves

have yet to hear.

**

6/13—a Friday

where even the most distant of  possibilities

seems close and at hand

and the silver taste of calm warms the mouth

with psalm-like sound

and appreciation deepens…

**

6/14

Can I know

that flower

but not know

its name—let me

count the ways…

**

Thoughts on revision…

to the extent attempted,

to find and to ride the breath

as light and clean as it allows,

to follow that trail, where it leads,

and no more…

**

6/19

In the dim light of early morning,

the crinkled turn of the last of the journal’s pages

spells melancholy anticipation,

like breath unburdened

in open-handed sky remembers its source

in letting go,

its deepest nature always working through, always

working through the lift and delight

of the myriad questions posed

even in the face of the answer

already freely given.