March poems

Light pouring through the window

into the living room,

passing through comment free, 

touching everything.

Moon’s search-party, 

still here.

**

I hitchhiked once, when young, 

from the west-reaching arm of Florida,  

to a small beach town 

on the continent’s western edge, 

just beneath Los Angeles.

Most of the details of that stretch of road-

life have long-since slipped into space 

far more grand than the Pacific, 

every last one still vital,

critical components of tidal influence, 

of life enabled 

to feel and to further 

this yet gentle wavelet, 

its own flavor deeper west. 

**

Doves

shelter from the rain

on a vine-tangled branch

of the pine—true to time, true

to place, we, doves and me.

**

Just when I think I’m lost, breath 

reminds me it’s holding my place.

**

for Hayden Carruth

“Poet” is a “way of being…” 

Pen speaks love of world

to the page. 

Voice is kissed resistance 

for those who would cover 

it over.

**

Occasions of contact 

can be arranged, created, 

purchased even. 

Understanding and love 

are different.

**

Bright sky light blue,

scats of cloud-brush

and beneath rooted feet, 

scattered shadows.

Trees and grasses hold,

while sun climbs.

**

Rains leave for longer now, warm-breathed light 

between hints of final growls—long mornings waiting 

for clearing skies, satisfied, we pull weeds 

to show spring we’re ready. 

**

Off to the side, my shadow races,

winner determined by the direction

of the light.

**

the heart bent 

to quiet-smile release,

sighs

**

Obaachan 

makes eye contact.

Palms together chest high, 

elbows either side 

wheelchair arms,

she smiles.

At me, or Buddha,

she doesn’t say.

Obaachan.

**

The true poem 

isn’t about the moment,

it is the moment,

in breath, and out,

in and out.

**

Morning

Morning, watching hills appear

in final trails of night’s rains, mists low 

and thinning, shadows grey under the pen, 

lines and words, haloed peripheries,

lifting black.

To attempt other awarenesses

than those certain happening here,

seems almost ludicrous.

To think to study the self

is to attend to other than this

is to think self away. 

Open attending is foundation—wonder, 

praise, reflection.

Pen scratches silence. Words give

of themselves the silence

that welcomes 

them back.

**

From out of the house sounds,

my name on her voice

stops my heart.

**

Everything whispered this morning,

splaying fingers in front of my eyes

that look just like mine.

**

Salmon-pink’s steady glow in the east

prompts promises of gladness

from the last of winter’s showers.

**

An open-winged crow

swoops low, lifts, a’lights

a’top the pole, to state its name

to drizzling rains.

Eyes washed clean of sleep, 

I raise my feet above the street

to state my name too.

**

**

**

“A poem is not an expression, nor is it an object. Yet it

somewhat partakes of both. What a poem is

Is never to be known, for which I have learned to be

grateful. But the aspect in which I see my own

Is as the act of love…”

        —Hayden Carruth, from “The Impossible

                        Indispensability of the Art Poetica”