Thursday, March 18, 2021

It's come to this



What signals

can we take

from day-counts


we can’t get

from heart-beats—


are we not

already

all we see,

breathe and touch—


does that not resonate,

does it not stream our blood-

pulse in full,


give to us,

thump to thump,

all we need,

need to know


of time that’s ours ?



**



News:


Marauders plunder

sacred white-sage—black market

profits in bit-coin.



**



In the hills, pulling from shared roots, 

hummingbird sage scaffolds new green  

into the sky, pushes crusted blossoms aside, 

lets wintered leaves rot and drop.


If something’s not answered here,  

earth and its springtime flora  

haven’t noticed.



**



Seventeen syllables and an epiphany… 



“One of nature’s greatest currencies

is events that happen

rarely.”


                        —Nick Jensen

                               conservation program director



**



The way it is is 

lips before head,

heart before that.


Just listen.



**



And so we thought it couldn’t be done

till sun’s rays arrived for us, and didn’t,


and we waited day to day doing what could

be done in chilled light waiting warmth 


we all didn’t really need for all the doing 

done in that light given.



**



Roadside eucalyptus

share traffic reports. Squirrels

usually listen, but sometimes

impatience wins out.



**



At age seventy-seven and almost half again,

that I might not make it to tomorrow is no longer

hyperbole, if ever it was, and if so, now less so.


So what now, last night I asked myself, who

had and has, no answer.


And, still here this morning, looking over at the cup 

with coffee, balanced on the table, the pen in the hand

on the pad on the knee—


showers stopped, leaves still dripping.


And as Lew Welch says the wise might say, 

as everything is seeming to say, “it all comes down

to this.”



**



The Heart Sutra’s

strokes on the scroll on the wall

say nothing to me.



**



Mists freshen the skin,

rains puddle. Morning glories

wait the hummingbirds.



**



When daylight arrives

at the window, lamp’s glow there

disappears with it.



**



That old poet Ryokan

lived down slopes so slippery

only frogs survived the rains—some

as small as your thumb.


I slid those slopes once, to his empty hut.

Cicadas, forests, little frogs—I clicked 

and clicked, the camera’s shutter 

covered



**



Morning winds stop: garbage trucks.



**



With the windows open,

crow’s calls

come in.



**



From along the slopes, the city appears

and the Sales Force Building

that boldly breaks that distant skyline,

shines with morning’s first light,


until, that is, sun chooses elsewhere.



**



Hardwood country, let alone


El Corte de Madera Creek Open Space Preserve, 

Fir Trail to Resolution to Tafoni sandstone walls’ 

millennia-scratched stories.


Deep forested canyons, steep ravines,

thick-padded trails. Bowls of earth-time

and dapple-lighted years.



   So many aged madrone, 

   air here is smooth and chilled—

   crows like its sound.


**


   Limb-hanging lichen’s

   glistening lace celebrate

   photosynthesis.


**


   In quiet moments

   the trees attending your breath

   signal shushed consents.

  


A way to spend the rest of a life—old growth, 

the sound of listening hardwoods.



**



Even if only

half-heard, the little dog’s bark

joins falling petals.



**



Afternoon traffic 

flow ebbs—a moment of rest: 


worries surface.



**



Lights in hillside homes

hold darkness close and in place,

calm wild dream-scapes.



**



outside my front door,

wafting floral gift—smokeless

curls of incense wait 


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