January

                …2019

There are mirrors, throughout the house

reflection of whatever passers-through

and flashes that windows let, 

taken so easily in as if 

interior-exterior were passing 

mis-impressions.

**

like A R Ammons, my backyard

is my nation-state 

and perhaps the thousand-footer

a hundred yards or so beyond—

what else: well, you may ask

who A R Ammons is:

**

barges lay distant

on the bay

rain drops

**

the experience of experience

holds its own

**

“Firm ground is not available ground.”

                                  —A R Ammons

**

The storm comes to turn the lights off,

leaves candles in place of stars,

heavy blankets, flash lights,

robes and bared feet padding

chilled floors leading to a toilet

that still flushes.

**

Sleeping deep

throughout a storm-torn night,

waking late

and long alone

where hours alone

take me—

waking from hours’ spell,

we’re told, will toll for real.

**

—A R Ammons…

“…we really are in a poetically inexhaustible 

world, inside and out.”

**

You can follow your own steps

back to the well. 

But where our feet have not yet pressed

is where something new can happen:

              

how the water tastes 

there.

**

Verbal encounters of the first kind

enquire of both parties 

where they’ve come from

to reach here, but do not demand

spoken answers.

**

—Nature’s way

The oranges on the tree

across the street

ripen, fall and roll

often the entire distance

to our side, 

and if not damaged 

or crushed by parking cars,

are recovered, peeled

and eaten.

**

Tiny pink-red petals

blink from beneath

the tangled green

hiding the fence

holding it all.

**

The Buddha on the altar is wood,

from Bali, folded legs firmly planted,

holds the left hand horizontal in the lap, 

the right, center chest perpendicular

with the grain. Eyes lowered, 

not closed, thumbs meeting tips

of curled index fingers—impervious

to successive clouds of incense, 

all comings and goings, waits 

without calling my name.

**

—The arrangement

The car takes me

from A to B and back—I take it

from tune-up to tune-up,

fuel stops in-between.

**

In times like these, continue

doing what you love best,

even, especially

if you can’t remember what

that is.

**

Letting go attentiveness,

letting attentiveness do,

loosens loneliness

into light.

**

Wondering 

what it was

he sought, he

thought, nothing

which made it

all the more

illusive.

In this world

not wanting

more is odd,

is suspect—

doubt arrived

but found no-

thing wanting.

**

Flowers do not visit other fields, 

but grow with all their might

for themselves:   their contribution

to the fields.

**

A R Ammons,

                —from “Poetics”…

      …

“not so much looking for the shape

as being available

to any shape that may be

summoning itself

through me

from the self not mine but ours.”