socks, there on the floor,
chill my feet—outside,
leaves ripple
**
first sunlight whispers
to the dirty window
to show itself
**
buddha images
on the window sill—all turned
inward—no judgement
**
compassion can simply mean
reaching out into
commonly shared space
with what’s needed
**
chanting—forgotten
rhythms finding tones and words
held body deep
*
—haiku science
consonant-cut vowel
sounds make meaning by counting
singing syllables
**
—true and real
in breath—out breath—hush
not so much closing doors
as passing through
**
we short-change ourselves
with talk of hope—we know dark
because light is here
**
ideologies,
yours or mine, reveal reserves
of deep ignorance
**
if soul is light, then
our shadows show it, our skin
knows it
**
and language, language
all of it always
breaking new tellings
of current’s workings
rushing and splashing
freely
under wide-eyed
wondrous skies—
careful listenings
hearing too
the hush
**
lost in walking-thought
‘bout how it all works
without doubt—every step
earth-met
**
the post-covid years have lingered
in a strange, lurking way,,,
I’d like to say
overnight things change
but days’ months, years
tell stories too
now of texture-
felt surfaces,
remembrance
through touch,
the world scratched
into healing—
yard-talk, tools, sweat
and dirt
passed between
we working two,
we, as always,
in all ways,
working as we,
finds my way
back
**
white-noise musak,
the receptionist lowers
her voice for privacy
**
waking not wanting
much more than to write,
but first, coffee
**
the page always takes
every bit of living offered—
no rejections
**
my true fellows,
scribbling away their own
way: words, simply
**
from the dentist’s chair,
videos of tropic oceans—
my mouth wide open
**
every morning
my window asks different questions
of the same view
**
I say simple, mean
ordinary, everyday,
intensely common
ripples barely attended,
noticed, addressed, called-out-to
**
the marine layer
holds this ridge of range for days
not letting go
its miles of inland drift
chill summer days to winter
**
between the houses,
quiet shade holds back
coming heat
**
slowly looking
around the room
claimed as my own,
seeing how much
regularly
missed is as if
I’ve just arrived
from somewhere else
I can’t describe
to you either
**
—after Cid Corman’s
& without end
poetry,
no, poem:
reflective
prayer and praise,
religiosity
in words free
of religion
or constraint,
received and
offered back
in and into
abiding wonder
**
the stroke and pull
of thumb to paper, the thought-
drawing pen…
**
and for me it is
as with the nun Sonojo,
haiku, waka
and nembutsu—at play
in the fields of the Lord…
**
on a hillside trail
among the oaks a small breeze
ripples through the hairs
on my fingers
