Clouds illumined

 

Of course, 

the flower seems to say

its song is of the sun, of course,

but its song, nonetheless.

**

Sensei once said, “your shinjin

is your poetry—keep writing.”

I didn’t understand for quite some time,

till now, even,  

he was pointing to one thing,

not two.

**

Something dear dangles

silent truth there just beyond the reach

of the tongue, strangely satisfying.

**

Having never been long on vision, 

never long on longing for this or that,

immediate accomplishments (like getting up)

have paved the way of deep satisfactions.

Being together forever

is done everyday,

together…

**

With nothing particular to do,

we can do anything, so let’s do that.

Leave the door a’jar, the world’s already in.

**

Without my glasses, I know the hummingbird

by only its quick-shift movements

among the blossoms, each one, each one,

scattered along the fence, clear intentions

bringing focus to mine. 

But it’s not the stops; if so, she would. It’s

the movement it’s about, the taste, the thought,

the word, the poem—all about the movement, one

beat among the others of the movements of the heart, 

not where it stops.

**

A word here or there, a group perhaps, 

pre-sent, present-caught, amidst the flow,  

tell us something that turns the head to listen, 

and even if not repeatable, we know.

**

Spoken aloud words 

resonate presence 

inner and outer landscapes

echo.

**

Come dark, sun-energized lights that string the lattice 

work every time without announcement, silent appearance 

as quiet a surprise as a smile pointed your way that you catch 

well after it’s begun, an intimate tinge, the addition of subtraction 

of self-consciousness, like lines of prose found holding the music 

of poems.

**

I pretend

to know myself,

but no such luck.

My name’s been called,

and over and again I’ve looked

in different directions, 

though my teachers assure me

its the hearing that counts, the rest

working itself out.

**

The sun explodes Christmas morning

in bursts of illumined clouds of salmon-pink 

and reaching streaks that seem to speak 

to no-one but me—not a thing a’stir but the weave 

of light, solitary leafs, 

the shifting grey from ocean to bay 

and singular drops of rain.

**

It’s words relating that happens 

on the page and on voice-opened air.

In the limitless ranges of listening,

signals abound—like moss does to north

and petals leaning to call the south,

people speak to who you are to them.

Revelations can occur; reflection too.

**

Obi Kaufmann, California naturalist, artist,

activist, and writer, once said that poetry is

“the ability to witness and interpret interrelated

moments of insight brought together by epiphany

and serendipity” (I almost forgot philosopher).

As for me, Jerry Bolick, an ordinary california buddhist 

bombu, somewhat uncomfortable with notions of ability, 

of interpretive skills, poetic or otherwise, clear resonance 

lies in those gifted moments of “epiphany and serendipity.” 

My part, to simply be there, and to follow.

That said, I continue to study and learn from Obi, 

a fine teacher indeed, and no matter how he sees it, 

a true friend on the way.

**

Coyote Brush is as common as dirt hereabouts,

dense bushed reaching branches extending

fully curled with small dull leaves 

into a delicate pirouette,

pursed at the tips like the kiss

of a tiny green rose 

which in winter gives rise to tight white lips 

of new seed 

that burst suddenly splayed tangles 

of hair thin surprise and promise 

spreading the hills like snow flakes.

**

—Back deck observatory 12/29

Orion steps out from the south,

but the full moon

ranging high in the sky

grabs his light before the telescope

can catch it: this winter night

is the moon’s—Orion demurs

and so do I.

**

As morning darkness asks light to return,

I ask out loud outside, what year follows

this one—nothing answers.

**

—12/31

A late morning in bed

watching the moon find its way

in the brightening day, 

the final horizon’s rising of so troubled a year,

even the neighborhood dogs 

wait in quiet.

Leave everything behind

I’ve heard there is a temple 

in Shimane Prefecture

that houses a monument 

proclaiming the site

the birthplace 

of Japanese poetry, 

and though I’ve not yet heard 

of a similar site here, it is understood 

that Walt Whitman was first to make verse 

uniquely “American,”

those long and rangy lines its situs, such a place

not likely lost on Japanese poets, whose fellow,

Issa, an elder to Whitman, had earlier declared 

his allegiance to the Temple of Haiku.

**

The old man sleeps

fatigue away all day, 

celebrates dusk

with a cup-full 

of wine—amen, 

amen.

**

That gnat knows 

well better than I

the full taste 

of the cup’s 

rim.

**

windowed

quarter moon

opens 

night’s sky

**

Quite a number of my closest friends

are dead but not gone, as is said,

out-breaths unfinished, their words 

still turn pages.

**

I’ve been watching, maybe too

you’ve noticed the taller trees gone gold

that wave and ripple

are beginning to thin, to bald their tops,

bared branches reaching 

into winter’s closing skies.

If asked, they might say 

the stars are closer now its winter,

which is why it’s dark longer, for the stars,

why, in part, they drop their leaves 

to that solstice closeness, reaching

for the nearness of the stars.

**

This morning’s walk, 

hearing the words’ 

silent music run through my head,  

I thought to stop to chant 

and while wondering where,

found my lips had already

found it, right there.

**

Although the ridge can see it from up there

at its thousand feet, it doesn’t speak of the Pacific, 

nor of what the sun’s setting might do there,

though sometimes the sky does, especially 

when clouds join, those given to signal and streak 

what they receive when sun and ocean meet.

**

Other side the bay, dark clouds hold

in the coming dawn, peaks and valleys

drawn at water’s edge 

where marsh once was,

one of the richest inland bodies of water

in the world, once, 

and that wondrous veil of clouds  

dropped by this morning’s air there,

to lift in its time too.

**

I’ll be damned

if I know

what makes it

poetry—

what makes it

worth doing,

I do know:

doing it 

anyway.

**

Old age and arthritis keep creeping in, 

small to sometimes large aches 

and challenges,

and while talking acceptance,

I sneak around looking for ways

to beat them both

(and remain quietly confident).

**

Under certain circumstances,

wrinkles in the bottom sheet

wake you.

**

Wrapped warm in my robe, looking out 

at the soft pink spread wide open petals 

of passion flower.

**

An urge, a pull perhaps, more than a push, 

yet a pull from inside rather than out, but that too,

both/and, rather than either/or, a gravity force, 

where inner-outer concur, communal coincidences 

simply understood as what to do now and here 

and therefore simply done—getting up

from under the blankets, into the cold-bump

welcome of winter’s morning air, the why

behind why do it at all ? 

**

Down in the yard, 

mulched manure  

around the fruit trees, 

end of the year incense 

and tangible wishes 

for a fruitful next.

**

Grey days feel colder, 

make warmth even warmer.

**

—Fog horns…

deep over the bay, all along the ridge 

too, everything lost 

but the calling.

**

No doubt, I love the high mountains,

but my backyard is a part of my heart.

Mountains are where I sometimes go,

home the place of return.

**

Shinjin—the trusting heart swells with beats 

so steady it’s normal to overlook their presence,

like the star-holding skies we breathe 

without noticing

but when we do…

**

The flutter-bump against the window,

a bird in morning shadow,

gone—

wind chime’s swinging 

its absence.

**

The kitchen sink sounds of apples 

rolling in to be rinsed.

**

Passing wings

interrupt wind chimes’ 

quiet time.

**

If you’d said

sixty years ago,

in my life there’d be 

Highway 1’s grass covered hills 

to the east, the Pacific to the west,

I’d’ve been as speechless then

as now.

**

—Remembering Brad Guthrie

We Zoomed the memorial,

his un-present presence

palpable among ours, 

quietly persistent

throughout

Brad

**

**

No updates please...

It’s late October, leaves fallen from the almond tree,

burned beige, surround the stone Buddha,

a pond of rippled petals a’float on autumn’s earth. 

Clear evening skies promise stars, darkening hills 

begin to flicker lighted windows. 

Kitchen sounds try their best to fill the house

not yet willing to let go its stillness.

**

Feet know each step

to be tentative. It’s why

they take turns.

**

—Some poet said

a poem works like gravity. 

Is that because a poem slows and holds you 

before you know it does, then while you read 

or speak it, and even after you think 

you’ve put it down, still does that ?

**

Dark falls on the hillside, 

squeezes house lights

into being, along with the thought

of a cool glass of white wine.

What this has to do with autumn

and a steadily aging body

remains mystery.

But the wine was a good idea.

**

The lamp on the table aside the bed glows there 

and in each of the two panes of glass

in the sliding window across the room,

mirrored against the framed backdrop

of hills and homes peering through

from the other side, 

scattered distant windows 

a’light

with the first rays of this day’s sunlight.

**

—The way

Even as a young man, pronouncements

and vows did not hold for me 

as did the interior click of decision-done

intuition, 

answer-rooted questions spreading light

around foot-claimed space, 

breezes smiling the way, as always they have, 

nodding the direction 

to what’s catching your attention 

anyway.

**

Like a leaf, I’m thinking it’s like a leaf, our life 

as individuals, an appendage of intention extended, 

extending, not so much held or holding, as stretched,

reaching out into all else extending there, larger intentions 

curling in return, working reciprocal links—like a leaf, 

not held, nor holding, but showing— 

**

—Elections over, nothing settled,

         I turn to the ancients for guidance

I’ve been looking to broaden the scope

of my own part of the conversation lately,

but seem to have lost track of where I was

in the process, and for that matter, what

I thought the conversation to be, much less

who might have been on the other side,

at the table perhaps, even in the room,

to think of it, whatever it was, which is 

one way to say, I suppose, I’ve little more

to say any more, or so it feels. 

Except for the words, that keep trailing through 

of their own, that I follow, I do, more and more 

believing they belong not to me, but  

the 10.000 things the ancients spoke of

so often, that tell us of the world, of ourselves,

of what’s really going on.

At any rate, someone else will have to figure

whatever that other conversation was, its worth 

to continue or not, cause this old man is going 

for a walk, where earth’s arc meets the sky,

reconnect with what’s really going on.

**

—Connecting with Issa

Morning coffee cools more quickly

these early November days, surprises

seasonally done, subtle announcements

of arrivals already occurred—bare feet

noticing chills that linger.

Don’t know with any certainty of course,

but do suspect that scholars and even

we’ll-meaning religious types tend

to over-work things a bit, posit realities,

differences, not so much really there.

Issa, for instance, famed haiku poet,

in that year he traced in verse, is said 

to have written of winter, but was alluding 

to his later, last years, yearning for re-birth.

Well, maybe. But metaphor and allusions

are meanings read-in to words that don’t 

themselves hold those meanings.

What we do know is that Issa curled his brush 

through that year’s fall and into its winter, while there,

and that his practice, time to time, was to utter 

Buddha’s name.

This is not to deny tradition, but to say, after all, 

it was cold, he was old, stars were likely, and indeed, 

the tradition, abundantly clear, as I’ve begun to see, 

is this: Issa, it’s cold here too now, and quiet, the wife 

still asleep. And though I’d thought to read, instead, 

as always, as overtime, like you, I write, and grow old 

knowing Buddha’s name.

Outside the wind blows. In here, both the coffee

and my feet feel the chill. 

**

—the road to anarchy

          can be quite quiet

I wake later now than when I was younger,

those many years of unyielding sense of purpose 

slowly overtaken by life’s generalized plans, prompted 

perhaps unwittingly by an inexplicable forgetfulness 

a few years ago around setting the alarm, for a while

waking up pretty much as usual, until that slow 

and subtle transition where force of habit morphed 

into body-signaled needs, true movements, real,

like rain waters finding their way with earth’s surfaces, 

mutual relations at work, determined by whatever

happens to determine them, all depending, always 

working. 

And for what it’s worth, over all, once you’ve adjusted

to not being adjusted, there’s no going back.

**

—Song for Hayden Carruth

And then there was, there is, Carruth,

wispy-bearded wonder with words that flow so

you’re forced to mouth them out, only to find 

they’ve brought you there, he’s brought you again 

there, to where he was, where he is—what the poem,

what the poet, is really about.

**

For awhile It’s been as if something

has been misplaced or the room changed, 

rearranged, or the window streaked with rains 

is dream and a bad eye getting no better

clouds haloes around where clarity once was.

And it’s been this way, muddled grey, all this time 

before this morning, before this morning’s opening

sky lifted the world of its weight

and, left freed, let free, the world again glistened, 

yes, again glistened true and close a remembrance 

of the feel of that touch our words cannot catch, 

the touch of the feel of the nearness of things, 

the presence of things so close as to always

and ever be before 

they come to be named, 

words and names called forth therefrom

to affirm—to mirror, to echo.

**

Deciding to study 

with Issa, I raise the pen,

take a breath.

**

The first of season’s rains

drive us inside to gather 

with our favored blankets.

**

Stars hide in the rain,

but houselights on the hillsides

do a nice job.

**

Penning the final poem

on the journal’s last page

under fast closing eyes.

**

Trees drop their leaves,

we our words—neither remain

all that long—the most to hope for,

the best maybe: 

fleeting beauty

noticed.