Willingly here...some poems

And so when

I let go-opened up

said goodby and hello

to the flush and rush

so softly lightening me

to toe-tip-finger-buzz rightness

of the no-looking back kind

where looking back is part of

the whole of it all in the light

of it all, I couldn’t help

but smile at it all, here 

in light of it all.

**

The hammers 

hammer

the damp air

of light

rain before

storm waves

wash workers

away.

**

Atoms

don’t work

alone.

Why do

we think

we do ?

Loneliness,

perhaps.

Alone,

never.

**

Breath-count poems

proliferate heart-held joy

engendered therein.

Observe lightly, be spare, 

for inks have dried, she said,

in pens poised for too long.

**

The morning before the morning

before Christmas, rains leave

six-thirty streets dark

with mist and fog, shadowed

movement, muffled sound,

leave chill’s edge 

to blanket-felt

silence 

sensed

only by those 

willingly

there

with the world, 

willingly there.

**

for Liza…

that finger-tip knowing 

often done when gathered—gentle 

laying-on touch I think intuitive—of us 

as a knowing through us, though not 

rightfully claimed as ours, per se, 

but, yet dependable nonetheless 

trustworthy…confirmed 

by the veracity 

of that felt

**

Drafts find in and out;

water, bottom and level.

Words follow the drafts.

**

first light returns

with the shift of fog and mist

to rooftop sheen, pulling color,

foreground and back,

into warm remembrance

**

Dawn.

Rain-washed petals,

Christmas lights.

**

Slowly I’ve come to see presence

isn’t limited to me…

that it’s not what the world wants 

of me, but what the world is 

with me

that holds me.

**

Pre-dawn

lights

black shadow

hillside

house

holds 

dripping

mists.

**

Our lagoon plays bridge

between bay waters

and ancient marshlands

covered over with time.

Neither lagoon, nor sky

have forgotten.

**

All through the night bamboo

reaches, tree limbs reach, leaf tips

and grasses, all through the night

till dawn, listening, listening

for what light will bring.

**

—1.2.25

Franz Valley Creek

winter watershed

ponds

shallow 

recesses

that seep slow

wet spring 

to summer

dry

blooms.

**

Local airport vibe

is familial, everything

at hand, kids

can’t get lost,

bag lunches

and no-one, but no one

dressed up.

**

Sketch-book refrains press lines

encountered before heard

clearly enough

for words 

to find 

sound.

**

—California 

rising from the desert floor

east ranging mountains

carry stories of snow

to remind us

it’s winter,

while neatly etched farmlands

below 

say things never heard

on west-lying ocean 

winds 

that resonate yet like bells 

in the blanketing fogs 

of north-country 

vines

**

Dawn colors emerge

departing darkness

like water from snow 

lightening in the sun

and again I think of Nanao

the poet how he left in the night

taken in by the snow

—not a track, no trace—

and wonder how many now

can follow steps like those.

**

—coins of my realm

conversation, conversations, talk,

more talk, its songs, its musics

deep and shallow, shallow to deep

surrounds the heart, ripples bones,

jostles minds, then calms

that extraordinary warmth, that

natural tangle 

of common-place breath

so commonly, so carefully, so

beautifully 

exchanged and shared

**

just think, now is always

only here 

only once—all else, 

piddly.

**

If I could make music like music

moves us

my songs would move closer

to the stars

would concert with shadows

in morning’s hills

sing love songs to wintered willow,

if I could make music—

like music moves us, I’d riff

with the streams,

finger-pick bird calls, ask coyote

for harmonious refrains.

If I could make music like music

makes us,

I’d ask the gods to never stop.