—Sunday to Seattle
Above the clouds, blue.
Below, passing miles count
the way northward.
*
Pacific northwest
rains take us in like old friends,
ready or not.
*
The timeshare’s quiet
and compact— just what we need,
asks nothing of us.
*
Rain or rain, we walk,
breathing streets to the Sound’s edge.
History speaking,
architecture answering—
how the city sees itself.
***
Maple leaves outside
the window signal silence
as rain drops its drops.
**
And when the sun comes,
clouds gather whiteness to watch
blue squeeze its way through.
**
—after the scholar’s statement
are religious qualities
in artistic pursuits signs
and if so what is signaled
a deterioration
of those qualities or insight
into deeper dimensions
or are both one and the same—
ancient messages of change
**
Something in the air
celebrates—all passers-by
fellow travelers.
**
—Dale Chihuly
“It’s not about constantly searching
for something new—new just happens.
I’m an artist, I just keep working…”
**
Gulls answering calls
this morning, any offered,
speak to clouds what’s heard,
not of rain, but of what’s lost,
what, but for calling, is gone.
**
Listening deeply,
more keenly to everything,
weakens grips and holds,
widening circles letting
trust determine friend and foe.
**
—Seattle, after Bainbridge…
It’s a Saturday,
the new place quiet and light,
spacious—trees, a yard.
Last night, young people.
University-charged air,
brisk and energized
as the air in the Sound’s winds,
as air walked-in
on earth risen to meet it, sea air,
island air breathed in,
each heart-beat tracing the taste,
every step pulsing newness.
**
Under the left wing,
snow-covered mountains watch us.
Seattle—Portland.
**
The words curve
to the page
like fingers
to the palm
stroke
to unfold
the questions
the poems
reveal.
**
—the ”Buckman,” neighborhood, Portland
above The Basement Public House
Standing in not enough light,
pulled on by a dangling chain,
not wanting to see too much
anyway, we say out loud,
we’re too old for this—and then,
set out to settling in.
**
—Portland to Jersey
Leaves cover walks
to porch-sitting pumpkins—here
bringing me back there,
to then—an old man’s childhood
never too far off to touch.
**
Language
is the law of connection
expressing.
**
That voice that covers
the hills vibrant with gold, tells,
tells me why I’m here.
**
The earth has said “No.”
With everything around us
listening, you’d think…
**
—The Heart Sutra
Streams of careful curls
and strokes of charactered thoughts
of living meaning
hang long on the quiet wall,
silk and rice and ink,
cherished sutra of the heart,
traced threads of human being.
**
The ever-clouded
light of knowing resting there
in peripheral presence,
the pen’s tears drop to the page,
quietly waiting, all aglow.
**
We can walk the hills
with friends or among strangers.
Names wait to be called.
**
Mid-October winds
remember for us, summer-dry
hints of fire.
**
From the other room,
feint sounds of the TV, warmth
for a yard-tired body.
Pandemic has taken a lot,
old age it’s share too.
But this remains yet, we two,
different rooms of one life.
**
The counting of syllables
is the making of language—
there is no separate process
at work but meaning making—
process and form simply not
the point.
**
Day breaks clear and cold.
Street lamps linger, speak of night,
breathing speaking living.
**
After twenty years,
the crumpled-fingered floor guy
says, “you were young then.”
**
Following the words
where ever they lead, next moves
figured out later,
the poet sits in the bed,
traces trails outside the window.
**
Mid-way down the slope,
awareness surfaces, bares
morning’s shadowed lines—
confusion scatters, mountains
clear, peaks round and clouds scratch pink.
