unprecedented grace

“The stream is always revising.

 Water is always ready to learn.”

                          —William Stafford

**

loved words, a handful,

counter-balance to the noise

that says nothing sound

**

—after Kerouac

swimming in a “lake

of light,” we wonder when sun-

rise will bring the day

**

In the sun-warmed car,

others passing. the pen feels

to touch the pages

of myriads of scratched sounds, 

caught and trickling

slides of words risen to lines

that trace the mind’s run

in a world on fire, the coals

of the heart the heat

of the unquenchable joy

lifting to the pull of air.

**

the small black bird tosses itself, 

three times arcs and hovers

flutters and drops

to a catch and a swoop

to up again—three times 

till lost

among the homes and trees

and horizoned hills

that somehow remain 

unmoved

**

I truly do try

to believe most most everything

I say, and then some.

**

Winter’s shortest day,

that one long with lingering 

dark, is when the ground,

leaf-covered and cold with rain,

dreams with us of coming spring.

**

Moon, half and high, fills

the clearing skies, just as we

fill drying streets.

**

—12/24

the new year

doesn’t know

its a new year

anymore than

my body knows

past birthdays—

and spring’s seeds

ride rain’s drops,

hide in snow-melt currents, 

not caught by numbers

—so spring doesn’t wait, 

so neither will I

**

first, those old zen poets,

then William Stafford, who offered

nothing definitions can hold, who defines

by doing and not looking back, trusting

that where our words are, the world is 

always and too—and if that’s not grace,

I don’t know what is

**

I’m my mother’s son

in that my life’s heart rests best

in our days at home.

And like my father’s restless

feet, mine gain strength returning.

**

Bared fingers turn to

nubs, rain rolls down the jacket

and storm-drains gurgle.

Some determined leaves, bright reds

and deep oranges, hang on.

**

Didn’t know it then,

but I failed Zen from the start—

it was never first.

But that first chant, family 

sleeping, Buddha’s name, with tears.

**

a stretch, early walk

in departing rains—coffee,

wrinkled page, scratched words

**

I think I told you

once I visited Ryokan

at Mount Kugami—

thumb-nail frogs guard the path there,

and my thumb blocked my selfie.

**

All thorough learning,

seems to me, includes return—

who returns matters.

**

—Shelf-life is a universal phenomena…

have you..I have not

ever met a noun that stayed

fixed—why is it then

that we struggle and strive for 

continuity,

consistency, conclusion—

who points us to these dead ends?

**

Last day of the year.

Last morning cloudless—naked

trees lace the cold sky.

**

A surveyor’s pin—

on the street point around which

entire worlds turn.

**

—Stafford, on making poems

even when product

is dispensable, process

remains precious

**

—1/1/2022

The sky looks the same.

Sun glints in east-faced windows.

Rooftop frost will lift.