all that follows

 —all that follows…

February’s after…

and finally we get to breathe-in

and let go

in complete freshness

the full weight of that December-

January shift

in these brief spurts 

of winter-clear light

and long nights

wrapped in reflection:

**

And still, we wait

tiredness to fill to full

to pass

so that we too

can move on.

**

February’s moon…

full, wanes, falls, slowly

lighting our waking.

**

if then 

life-death

is art,

presence

is pursuit

enough

**

white-tipped

limbs here bare

February blossoms

**

I’ve been told

death’s bad rep drifts away

when you let go of the idea

it’s on some “other side.”

**

Reaching down

to the flash of color

among the weeds

to cry aloud the flower’s name

in delight…that’s beauty.

**

One of those almost never

walks by the bay this morning

early before the sun; two ducks

overhead call out, a big-bellied sea bird 

wings—reflections on marina waters,

distant breezes, open skies

and a whisper over my shoulder

to my younger self, to better keep up

with this old man.

**

Though ever-open to anyone,

every and all, the mountain waits

for no one, and you never know

what you’ve missed. 

**

From the mouth of the canyon, birds

release themselves in spreading waves

of disappearance—to say only humans

know exuberance is to not know

what canyons know.

**

That the bird

sitting on the distant power line

turns out to be spot of dirt

does not diminish the gleam

and glow of sunlight on windows 

across the way. 

**

rain-clean streets lift light

to morning sky—who says

haiku can’t sing

**

With the power gone, lights out

and writing in candle shadow, I ask

again of the sound of peace

and remember the teacher, 

soft, telling: listen, first listen, then

again listen and, last, listen.

**

Sky-puddles tell of night rains, 

morning layers of gray.

No reports of blue.

**

This poem, my life, not so much holds

as opens, not so much all and its end as what

is ever-next, as touch and sight and breath

extend to tell listening to hear here tell

everything there is this now: this poem, 

my life.

**

And how else but pen to page,

following voice-silent emergence.

**

More often now in these late years,

waking late, today to blue morning sky

scattered and brushed in distant puffs

of whisper-white, 

storm’s chill-jumbled dreams gone

along with all recollection 

of day’s intentions and chores…

these late years.

**

Rain drops, wood smoke, 

the poncho’s hood—in the air,

though slow to come, 

winter.

**

Early blue sky vitality

quietly withers, covering cloud-whisper

claiming one dazzling dance

with another.

**

Rain, oh yes, the rain

in every crack and crevice,

calling the grass,

the wild weeds

to answer.

**

For us, being is learning, being is learning:

**

Eternity’s work is time’s day

by nano-second. Looking up, the hills

look back as I wriggle along a crack

I call sidewalk. How it will be when

we’re gone, well, whole, as now,

eaten bones sprouting trees.

And, oh, the poems…just as I said.

**

Nature’s way, sometimes barely noticeable 

trembles, not weakness, signals 

endless enduring continuity.

Don’t mistake what we routinely think

for the whole of what is.

**

The telephone wire waves goodbye

to the blue birds.

**

Rains come unannounced, cover 

everything throughout the night, 

leave me fatigued, so listless 

even strong coffee barely whispers. 

Hillsides bare themselves to light, 

fog crawls the ridge, puffs of gauze

above bush and leaf, 

I too begin to lift.

And in these after-minutes

of telling as told through living,

sought after clarity reminds me 

no one, no thing has ever not been

all the while here. 

Even mystics stand on earth’s ground.

**

Fog hugs

like love

today.

No need

to hug back.

Empty 

gestures 

don’t count.

**

Drips from passing mists, 

pearls from a giving sky.

**

Albert Saijo, an American original,

once said, “If you don’t live on the edge,

you take up too much space”—living

the poem then, a bubble-burst of word

at lip’s edge, spit at the tip of the pen,

muscle curved into paper—all else 

no more than discarded skin.

**

final February days bring a break

from cold and rain, buckeye trees

think spring, splay fine new green

**

in a time when clicks count more than content,

when count is King, when King Counter

even attempts to co-opt the uncountable,

maybe it is understandable 

that those who control numbers remain so

unaccountable, understandable 

that “wise use” spread sheets presume to map 

corporate right to nature, deemed valueless 

but for that, 

understandable that “wise” becomes

a four letter word, digit by digit, 

to decimal point,

 rather than silent point,

in times like these, when only clicks count, 

the scratch and pull of the pen 

spells resistance