Saturday, November 13, 2021

things come around

 




Orion above

puddle-spotted streets—

winter’s early signals.



**



The wooden Buddha

holds still—that web, nose to finger,

just not a problem.



**



—Jack Dairiki


my architect friend

filled post cards both sides with signs

of his gratitude,

shared unfiltered wonderment

about the world he walked in



**



—life with Sandino


That youngest child

in our lives broke all the rules

at birth, continues

to do so—locking eyebrows

with uncertainties, 

he probes with curiosity, 

but closes with tough, 

unwavering conclusions,

for all time: we learn

with the joy of the former,

sharpen our skills with the latter.



**



It doesn’t matter

what’s said so much as saying

what the words want to say.


It doesn’t matter

what’s said so much as hearing

what the words want to say.



**



It’s the way it is.

Some days, limbs and leaves ask roots

to say, all’s OK.



**



Walking, pondering

advancing age, my feet stop—

the hills are laughing.



**



Haven’t seen real rain shadows

in so long, had a hard time

finding my feet on the streets

in morning’s darkness,


bumped loneliness so hard,

it leapt to my lips and spoke.



**



Waves of winds and rains

carry through night

scattered thought-dreams.



**



Where winds couldn’t do,

rains wash long-needled pines clean

across wet sidewalks.



**



Fifteen-cents an hour.

First job, at Pat’s. Washed dishes,

learned too, to make change.



**



—Muso Soseki


That old poet priest

said Buddha’s Enlightenment

was his only home—


doors and windows left open;

entry fee, just your breath.



**



More and more, the rain,

after years of draught—if concern

is prayer, how we’ve prayed!



**



Windshield wipers wipe,

winds and rains bluster


    —freeway’s center: 


                      an oak leaf.



**



When it stops, leaves, limbs,

downed wires, gutter debris


     and crows, 

             taking cleared skies.



**



Under just cleared skies,

we find the cemetery—

even more tears.



**



Poetry, that hum underneath, 

tastes of rising traces of its own scent.



**



Hills still draining

what they can’t drink, flora stands

straight up, watching.



**



Slowing down to count

doesn’t change anything, and 

why would it have to?


For those close enough to hear,

poetry happens itself.



**



The sky’s light glistens

in shards of stained glass—winds stopped,

I stoop to sweep.



**



Quenched cacti blossom.

From the storm of the decade,

these tiny petals.



**



Morning’s moon gets lost

overhead—shadowed footsteps

have other stories.



**



Soft pink in the east.

Christmas lights on my right.

Day’s light—year’s light.



**



Clocks, about to change hereabouts, 

presumably changing life here too.


Other beings may notice the shift

—but the moon and the stars?



**



A rooftop glistens.


In the smallest breaks of clouds,

pieces of the moon.



**



Who besides yourself

have you read closely enough

to change your life?



**



The teacher once said

to study only dharma.

Misunderstanding his intent 

as too narrow, the door closed 

was mine—till now.



**



“The roosting bird understands the Tao,

sails don’t know where they go.”

                           

                                       —from Tu Fu’s “Six Choruses”


I won’t pretend to know others,

only myself, and that’s iffy, even, especially 

maybe 


as to the marks left behind,

and what might have been


different, you know,

which I think is likely nothing.


We do…in context—

who we are in the world, as is

then, there,


lessons breaking through

in their own time

to whatever who is then there,

which depends of course,

on contexts including age

but not to be deduced by age, which shifts

like everything else.


Others speak better to legacies we leave

than we do, and we can do

only the best we can do

at whatever the time.


Some lessons leave traces 

the same as fallen pollen; 


others, like farts, 

just smell.





**



Reluctant, the sky holds its rain 

but for large drops

splattered here and there

like so many bloated thought-stains 


spreading clarity’s edges

over pages so sodden

they tear with light’s weight.


Dying well is life’s project,

intimate, crucial partners: birth-death, 

sound and song, momentary snaps


of sense-energy floatings,

world’s of mystery’s musics.


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