Sunday, February 25, 2024

...titles fail





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


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