—July 7th—
There’s an old story
from well before digital,
where the knowing master
stops the novice
at the gate, tells her
to practice more,
return in ten years.
She does.
**
A plane passes unseen
over the rooftop.
A plane, plain and simply
sound-known,
no question, no need
for more
than this enough said:
a plane.
**
Ansel Adams Wilderness—8,900 ft.
Madera Creek runs strong. Scattered patches
of snow, threatening clouds
and the wide expanse
to peaks
rarely seen from here.
Darkness falls. The creek moves,
the tent’s netted walls
make home.
**
“A few clouds, a few trees
have been your only companions.”
—Chia Tao (779-834)
Chittenden Lake—1
Waking at six—the sun, the peaks,
the gauze-like half-moon
in a pool of blue.
Sing Peak snows hover a thousand feet
above the ice-filled lake
and the roughened arc of cirque
runs a ledge of pine and snow
that holds the perch
where I slept the night
among the stars
at the edge of grace
**
Chittenden Lake—2
5 AM—before sunrise, the last star,
moon watching
everything—
are we not always
at the edge,
just not awake enough
to see
that way ?
**
Chittenden Lake—3
The lake’s inlet stream
runs from beneath a stretch
of ice and snow
that runs from just below
the highest of the peaks,
a rush of white sound
that blinds the ears
with a sense of ever-presence
that quiets inner tides
with sense enough to hear
lake lap rocks.
Differing ripples
awakening
relation,
listening,
afternoon sun taking
what all the lake
will offer.
**
Down from the high country,
moving through forests
toward the trail head,
we swim Lilian Lake,
wade Madera Creek,
stop for the night
in a rock bound meadow
with time to linger
with the thickened trunk
of an ancient Juniper Pine.
We eat, we walk and talk,
we prepare and clean, rest
and sleep—we look, we point,
laugh and smile—we hurt, we tire.
Same life, I think, differing circumstance.
Always a lot more to learn.
**
The last night of this trek is the first
I’ve not immediately fallen into sleep.
Outside the tent to pee, the Big Dipper.
The rain-fly will limit conversation
with stars; but it’s always better to check in,
always better than not—you know, I’m here
just the same as they, nowhere else,
for awhile anyway.
**
Sipping tea,
the mountain sits,
the man writes,
Heaven breathes.
Reading of Chinese poets
writing poems, writing poems.
**
I’m not convinced with plans,
even suspicious, so have few beyond
the next coming day; but patterns
of focus do unfold pallets of pathways
of sensed conviction and root-free
intention—which means, I tend
to just follow my nose.
**
What does it mean that mind
is the true subject of poetry
and what does that say
of the religious
who say this is theirs.
And is there a difference
that matters
before dawn,
before light appears
and is seen ?
**
July 23rd
“…I could not help
but chant out these brief songs.”
—Shih-shu (17-18 century, China)
After words…
The mountains make me sing.
I’ve been chanting now forty years
or more, more recently thinking
it had let me go; but
the mountains
draw the heart in ways
that leave the breath
little room to do
little more than turn
to voice on lips in song.
The mountains, they make me sing.
**
The only certainty is uncertainty,
unerringly fulfilling
all exceptions
of itself
itself.
—July 26, 2017—
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