On the wire trellis
fence top out front
a small bird perched
watching reminds me
of watching back then
the old woman
pointing to our place
in the chanting
voicings of hundreds
of years
of celebration
and how
that still helps
me fly.
**
Morning sun rays
thin stretched clouds
deep pink
mist fingers
skim
the bay
and January’s last days
breathe worry free.
**
Poets work words
and wonder their power
all the while working
under theirs.
**
I’ve never thought
lots of things I suppose
and rarely am I asked
what’s buoyed there mid-air
behind eyes all mine…..
so some
times like now
I just tell:
**
—Air-travelogue…
all that waiting, and
just as January passes February
time
without so much as a blinked
pause
—in-breath breathed out—
we wake in Tampa sunshine brisk
and readied blank
slates.
**
—Re-union
We drink to being eighty alive
together still
foolish
—un-repeatable youthful bondings
refuse to be un-lived,
we laugh and ask of each other how
we’ll ever know
it’s time
to write death poems,,,
**
—to Beth
another morning
long on talk of knowing
each other’s lives unfold
in that warmth
**
Outside our room,
small grey birds with
colored breasts
share a feeder
filled with seeds
with a grey squirrel
with silvered tail
and bright inquiring eyes
looking into mine.
**
Those meeting points
of breath
pushing-pulling
living along,
so mostly missed
in the living
of those passing points…
asking the Masters what
they watched
was this.
**
Where I live the sun
rises behind and beyond mountains
east of where I walk,
touching first and longest
day into day
on their tops
and on lingering under-bellies
of birds
passing the years,
touching every, each and all
passing in time—
when lost or bewildered
I turn to the birds.
**
—From an un-named poet in Japan:
“The last of human desire:
he grasps at
the air.”
Not one thing ever
is not evidence of
the ever-working
living/dying
realities’ unfoldings
we are
a part of: wind, leaves
and moonlight.
**
It isn’t about trying
hard or
if at all,
is OK
too—but to notice either
way, like leaves do
quiver sometimes
sleep or leap
to mind
the wind.
**
How many times will I write rains
clear blue skies
appear—
well as many
as I can in light
then there lingering
with a pen.
**
—once again, asked to teach…haiku
to return to root
source poetry work opens
all six directions
often seen as sleep
time in winter cultivates
before spring sprouting
and requests to share
passions nurture blossoming
mirroring sun’s warmth…
**
—morning tanka
one might ask small things
of a fence-top bird, black head,
grey breast and wings—but
that he be the whole of this:
life-breathing morning moment ?
** and-or Robert Lax,
slow-life poet,
might write it like this:
one might
ask small
of fence-
top birds,
black heads,
grey wings
and breasts
—one asks
small things—
but, that
he be
the whole
of this
breathing
moment ?
**
In the dark morning
under-cover warmth, a blank
stream of prayer and praise—
silence uttering itself
among breaths and stars alike.
**
—February
fogs—fine mists face-kiss
buds and early blossoms bright
on barren branch tips
