winter songs

 —winter songs

giving myself over,

winter takes me in,

asks where I’m going—

“to spring,” I say… 

and winter, that thin smile…

**

eating today

the last apple

of the season

branches bare

for pruning, 

fertilizer,

mulch—

dreary mornings,

short afternoons,

cold feet, long nights

lingering malaise:

the crusted month,

the waiting month,

Novembering

finally

letting

go…

**

joy 

sometimes

doesn’t

smile

sometimes

eased

knowing

makes

its own

way

**

the teacher, the teachers abound, 

never tire of striking the bell—

each time we think 

there’s nothing there to hear

is where, is when 

we’re most clearly heard

**

the fence-top squirrel laughs, winks

at winter’s arrival

weeks before 

its calendared date

**

wondering out loud, they 

smile at my writing

each morning finding

poems floating here and there—

and how, I  ask, can I not

**

“Not for one moment, Walt Whitman…,

have I ceased to envision your beard

full of butterflies…”

                  —from Lorca’s Ode to Walt Whitman

**

“…the normal process for the artist” is to seek

“kindred formulations” of other “older artists”

and from there to continue…

              —Waldo Frank

**

waking to unexpected bedside energies, 

hillside streets are easily worked—

clear cold dawn-lit air puffs 

with building heat

 

**

learned, from my granddaughter, 

her working declaration—wisdom-laden, 

freedom-laced—her pivot practice 

of release: 

when finding herself too tightly hanging on,

“Oh well…”

**

—December deaths…

plastic-wrapped news

                              akimbo

         at the bottom of the stairs,

                            morning’s streets 

                                              tremble

and over the bay,

            beginning it all again,

                     sun’s rising orange

**

when we learn

   what we seek

      is the calling voice

         worlds unfold

**

a singel star,

darkened hillsides

Christmas

**

sitting 

waiting for

whatever is to happen 

already is

unfolding 

without prompts, beginnings

vows or promises,

just noticing 

as noticing does

what already is

and when 

done so

we wake

each time

just a bit 

more

alive

**

fog slick streets,

everything wet

deepening drippings

running rivulets

of root-life, 

needles drinking freely…

**

if, as the shaman says 

“light is the message”

then shadow…its song

**

yellowing leaflets

tremble 

a stream

of gold and green

along the darkened trunk

carpet

the ever-working ground

of earth—

nothing, ever, here is still, nothing 

ever purposeless, always ever free

and yes, you too, and me

**

flapping poncho walking,

misted drizzle dropping

foolish old man mutters

over the scholar’s “personal

religion” remarks,

an oxymoron, to be sure—

religion studied is 

religion lived…

no periods, only colons 

will do here:

**

where wind goes

feet find earth space 

every step’s home place

home bound family found…

here-now eyes touch, 

fingers touch

organization enough

**

and we spiral

for its own sake

to feel wind

sound itself 

around us

**

when dark I can’t see

ocean’s swells

carry me

across

**

rains say, quietly dripping

breeze-tangled bamboo,

rains say, deepest, longest dark

lingers and recedes

time’s rounding distance soothes 

bald-faced winter

**

moon showing 

just its dark side

dark: “veiled, concealed”

likely distant Germanic “tarnan,” dark…

ignorant, un-enlightened,

also implying oppositions 

that are not real…

moon showing its dark side signals…

companion light,

signals new moon 

light close  by