Saturday, December 17, 2022

Watershed days...more poem-like things






Owl Canyon: 


deep mountain song—


do you hear ?




**



a seminal beauty, consciousness—


the given-giver, linked, linked, linked


linking, linking



**



Time-to-time

it’s as if

a page flips


of itself

you hear it

catch a glimpse


and it’s done 

already

opened fresh


and so clean

you could pass

without note,


yet

somehow

don’t.


**



The mountain showed me this morning 

a trail up through the oaks, 


through the oaks to lichened rock,

past gold-brown leaf-flow  


where energies surge and fogs swirl 

the endless changing ridge lines—


earth shows me mountain this morning 

and together we walk 


through the sheen 

of misted chill.



**



Moss likes looking north

toward coming moistures—


rootless like us, it also

enjoys the sun.



**



Morning darkness gone

but for the chill, raised eyes


find the tiny star that points 

the day’s way.



**



High in the tree

among bare branches’ reaching,


four birds shadow 

the sunless sky.



**



Good fortune

not overlooked

is grace—


each planted foot

easily lifting itself

as so wished


is no small thing at my age—


worlds of words whirling about

say so, each its own song,

heard as so, or not.



**



Yellow backyard roses

don’t know, don’t care about

the calendar—sun, water, 

earth: enough.



**



Whatever we like to think 

we’re reaching for


misses 


the point—we are

the reaching.



**



Mountain days begin

with first light—adding to the pack

Issa’s poems.



**



Heavy morning chill 

holds most everything still—



hummingbird wings.



**



at Nine-Fern Rock


the many-footed

polypody wakes winter   

with soft new green



**



sharing wet shoulders

with the garden Buddha,

chanting with rain drops



**



Winter, life is brisk.

Small birds meet in tree-sized toyon,

slopes facing south-east.


Cactus fruit begin to bulge—

will flower come the new year.



**



—To Issa-bo of Haikai-ji


a wanderer only in dreams,

my real-life roots are weed-like,

setting everywhere


cloud-water poets

nourish those rooted, to move

as freely as weeds do—


dormancy being a pause,

nothing stopping forever


winter rains green grass

on California hillsides—

ready hearts respond


       Respectfully,

             

                Shaku Gunmo, Brisbane, CA



**



Rains stop, moon drops,

resistance falters

and warm feet swing to meet

a cold floor right there

where they fall, right there where

nothing less than everything 

awaits.



**



caught myself this morning thinking 

of making some serious, meaningful 

statement, or something like that


—walked instead, took a walk, 

straight through a real big street puddle,

splashing childhood memories around 


soaking-wet feet, laughing 

at my much-wrinkled face down there,

laughing back  



**



the homeless guy outside the store


—returning home, the dollar

still in my pocket



**



chanting

on the crest of the hill

overlooking the freeway


—unforeseen harmonies



**



sitting in my chair, 

thinking of time, the moon 

overhead



**



Leaves won’t sweep

without wind’s help


and neither follow directions

other than their own.



**



winter rains—


half-moon high

in the slowly lighting sky,


new buds push to open

sleeping promise


both sun and moon know



**



So many leaves

on the winds, so many


the words—it’s the roots

that really show and tell.





****



End note, a quote from much-loved 

Zen poet, Shinkichi Takahishi:


“Poems are like blowing wind into the wind.

No matter how much you blow, it is nothing more 

than wind.”


And I can’t help but think of nembutsu

and each and every breath we take…


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