To open windows...2014

Jays

Most often,

just blue streaks.

But they hop too.

**

Intimacy:

coming in touch

with another’s

particulars.

And furthermore, when

particulars

begin to chafe

and one does not

think to run,

maybe even

love.

**

4/28/14

The calendar says spring,

but outside, petals quietly pry

open the crisp grip

of the last of winter’s chill.

**

5/1

May breaks 

with salmon-gold 

and feint splotches

of dusty white

buckeye blossoms 

beginning to bloom.

**

Have you ever noticed,

on these mornings when

windows have been open

through the night,

how dogs bark

almost-songs, how

children’s voices

waver the air, how

auto engines

turning over

sound the signature

of comfort ?

**

For Hayden Carruth    5/3

I wouldn’t have thought of it that way

if you hadn’t have spoken like that, but yes,

“acts of love,” gestures made in spite of ourselves,

because of ourselves, in light of their “impossible 

indispensability.” The unmistakable,

if mysterious, clarity of intent

to give in kind,

of that received as gift.

**

5/6

Night’s winds drop away in the space of a breath.

At the turn of the head, morning’s quiet pulls eyes skyward

to the last of the stars to hold.

What might it mean to be readied to die into the light,

to be taken in to a way of death beyond shadow,

a singular sliver of light, lingered, then slipping back.

**

fog is air gone

to water not yet—still,

we breathe, get wet

**

Last year’s kale served us most of four months

in soups and salads, stir-fried and mixed, and crisped

in the oven for the grandkids,

never once complaining, nor wavering, neither asking,

nor receiving anything in return,

till now.

**

5/11

You’d think at seventy

I’d have given up following

this pestering pull, but here find myself

sitting on the floor, knees folded, thumbs touching,

breathing—not wondering, until now, how

much more might be left to let go, figuring,

as before, I’ll somehow know.

**

For the Poet-Monk, Gensei

--don’t call my poems, “poems”    5/12

The early signals of truly warm days

are as distinctive as the pull of a known name

just before its sounding,

an unmistakable taste, prior to, that somehow

nonetheless fully partakes—like the earliest hint

of heart’s wonder, the flutter before flight,

like the shadow that prefigures

the moon’s halo.

**

Buckeye Canyon

San Bruno Mountain   5/16

The grassy slopes are mostly brown now,

summer’s color, studded with shrub,

oak of all size and bay in canyons and gullies.

Even without traffic, trails have turned

to hard pack that lasts through till winter.

Walking in this place on weekdays,

one will meet with many spider webs

and invisible pockets of nectar filled air

that speak to the long held influence

of native buckeye. 

Colorado Springs Journal

April 2014

4/14-4/15

We’ve changed, sure, the age part easy after forty years,

now two old men fumbling around dark roads off the airport,

two white beards flapping into morning hours

over wheat beer long gone warm—we’ve changed,

to be sure, but been given more

than the flash of an evening

to figure how much space, time,

really mean between friends—that first meeting of eyes

having already told how little.

**

4/16

Sweet, the light the morning lays among the pines, needle thin

touches of sunglow green against the brown, barren slopes

of winter’s restless waiting for a fickle spring.

Stocking caps, open coats, day packs, pass over cemented walks,

tracing movement toward the endless stretch of high mountain prairie,

matched only by the arced mantle of cloud-brushed, pale blue sky.

Time collects in times like this, mountain sentinels at watch at the edge

as past pushes to present, sends signals to a future just beyond reach

but just there just the same—a soft yet certain immediacy

where regret holds no weight and the simple nod

or bow are the work and the spell of wonder.

**

4/17

The walks are clear at first light,

last night’s snow on porch rails, in patches

on the grass.

High clouds whisper of future blue and the pen

threads thanks for the myriad reasons

that bring me here.

**

Here in Red Rock Canyon Open Space,

where Sand Canyon Trail loops to another

known as Contemplative—where deer watch.

**

The Knowls at Sweetgrass—4/18

At 6,000 feet, boiled water doesn’t hold its heat,

so cups of coffee shouldn’t be let to linger too long.

At 6 A.M., pink brushes the sky, frost the shingled roofs,

and bared branches search the air for signs.

I’ve chanted Buddha’s name many places, many times,

and there’s always a resonance in the chest.

Though it couldn’t be said it’s always the same,

there’s this resonance deep in the chest.

It feels like the sounds of home.

**

Mt. Cutler Trail—6,000-7,200’

Walking slowly up through the rise of red rock,

he says ashes will be dropped here one day—the few

who know now include me—snow falls.

**

Garden of the Gods—4/19

For Kathi

Wheelchairs have their own way,

pulling at times, and at others

needing a push. Either way, though not testing,

they let you know their mind and thus expose to you

your own—strengths and weaknesses

turned in the touch of the same sun

ready the path for the new work—no one let go,

no one left behind.

**

Most always, Pike’s Peak hovers.

Sometimes it hides as passing clouds

find their way around. Sometimes,

on days like today, it glistens

crinkled snowfields,

while along the streets, in the corners

of earth-scratched yards,

trees begin to bud.

**

Easter Morning

As grey turns to light, the sky

restates its promise; as the lamp

behind my head reflects its shadow

in the window looking out, the pine

lets go to stillness; as the petals

of the flowers on the table at my side

open, songs of renewal return;

as the hands of the heart

spread the wish to restore,

old friends dream of healing;

as the scratch of the pen

marks the swirl of prayer,

birds take to the air.

**

North Cheyenne Canyon—for Ted

Gentlemen,

are you brothers,

they asked,

twins?

Yes, we said,

Blood Brothers,

best friends

(different mothers).

**

4/21

The full around completeness of hour

upon hour fully lived

resists even the most well-intentioned

attempt to word—fractured

fragments, restless guesses, flutter

mute—tongue and pen

gone silent—nothing left

old man, but to bow.

**

end note…and yet…

the match in flame is as fire-full

as forest ablaze, water’s drops whole

as ocean, a single breath, a passing thought

complete a silence as sky.

Ask, if you must, where

the moment takes us, but not

what’s missing.

Notes along the way...

The thin curve of moon echoes.

Owls chorus dark-soaked streets.

Fogs advance to the edge

of the thirst

of grass,

offer just enough.

**

I once visited Ryokan’s hermitage,

where poems with names of simpler times

came alive with the sounds of cicada,

thumbnail frogs, humid shade and moss

covering the stones.

**

Shimmering pools

light intersections, passing tires

whisper warnings no one hears

but me.

**

Damp with the hum of solitude,

rains arrive in the night,

confuse the sleeping streets.

**

True self

Like the almond tree in the front yard

blossoms fully in late February

because it’s warm.

**

Learning early on

we couldn’t control her spirit,

we tried all we could to manage

the world about her

and couldn’t do that either.

**

The lights at night in the hills

never speak aloud, never call for more

than those who turn and who linger

with those lights, lingering back.

**

Delhi, the Sikh soup kitchen

25,000 mouths a day,

seven days a week,

come rain or come shine.

No one pays, no one paid,

no one turned away.

**

Jamba, Northwest India

Sometimes it hurts, almost,

to not sing long, melodious sighs

aloud. Like now,

as the sun sets clouds to silver, to grey,

the desert finally to shadow,

the sky from blue to black,

to silently stud itself

with stars.

**

Mumbai, at the Taj Hotel—the tour brings us here,

along the bay, across from the famed Gateway

to India, down the street from the corner

where families sleep on the sidewalk,

babies bare-assed in the dawn.

**

Kochin: what Westerners often miss…

the mist along the shores of the Arabian Sea

that lifts with light’s arrival, leaves puddles

to drink last night’s dusty streets—

tropical birdcalls, slippered feet

and harboring ships that sound

in morning’s warmth 

like a lover’s breath,

moist and pulsed

with heart.

**

How nightmares are made:

In the dream I write a poem

they want me to tell;

when it doesn’t go well,

they want to help…

**

Udaipar reflection

The sun drops, river waters silver

in changing light

and foolishness announces itself

by leaving.

**

Prompted by the ever-unfolding face

of personal circumstance,

the primary conversation

is always the internal—even

in the collective, we choose alone

how to live—this, who we are,

is our freedom.

**

“What does it mean.

This is not a question,

but an exclamation.”

                   Kenneth Rexroth,

                     The Same Poem Over and Over

The collective is one

of primal kin—not singular one

but wholeness in relation,

meaning in movement realized

in connection—no one thing ever lost

to another—like stars to sky, earth to heaven,

like gravity, foot-fall. 

The Tradition of All Experience

Before what we call morning,

there’s another that lives

where dark turns,

where doubt finds room

near the surface, 

or along the shore

where light weighs time,

lays claim to all experience

as its own.

**

And so, I’ve taken the pen at times,

at different times so many times

that the weight and heft

often remains un-discerned,

nor separate a charge from heartbeat

or the lift and rise of pulse—such it has become

of its own so thorough, so as to

reframe the world, steady the step

and simplify the things that need be carried.

**

“…because every syllable counts.”

                                       Cid Corman

The thrust of our living

letting loose our careening way

propelled and re-propelled millions

of little moves—is who we are—countless

the triggers off those little moves:

the greater mystery

               of who we will be.

**

Words—swarms of bees and honey—

**

It would be,

it is,

accurate

enough to say 

I don’t know…

**

Blue ink

marks the page

a way

beyond black

and yet

close akin

enough

to remind

one of

the other

as tracks

assorted

swirls and

broken lines

make their

own way

there on lines

that now here

hold weight and light:

a single point

in all time.

**

To turn

right there

and meet

the eyes

of the friend

you’d been

looking

for all

along…

don’t let go

that look…

**

The glint of moonlight

  on the rim of the bowl

     on the table at my feet

—at times a lonely way,     

         but never alone.

**

Fog collects thick as doubt

this morning. Even the closest trees,

rootless, shadowy slips, like distant cousins,

reliant upon familial resemblance.

**

One rejects nothing, the other

accepts everything.

Different times, different tongues,

linked on the lure of language in line.

And for each,

though treating margins differently,

each day begins

a blank page, listening.

**

Answering the last hours of dark on the mountain’s trails,

sitting among the chilled stones, watching light

begin its work,

earth’s textures, what night holds safe, why stars

lean so close, how morning returns

already full.

**

There are days when utterance crumbles

as it meets the air, when the most careful intention

stays jagged and torn and reliable lies just beyond reach.

On these days, let grip slip to those slower movements,

to those recesses deeper than doubt, return to that refinement

where inevitable resides.

**

And what if the world arrives,

full distance of all time, present

at your doorstep?

**

Mist and low-hanging clouds.

The moon, a luminous smudge.

But the owl calls, quick to scold

those who turn away too soon.

2014 Notes along the way…

2014 Notes along the way…

January 2014

Words and names

ride breath

being spent,

sound the edge

of having been

and will be,

each return

and no return,

remembrance

awash

in currents

of timelessness.

**

There are the hours where light sleeps,

rests in the velvet of original voice, 

waits the slightest quiver.

**

For me these days,

flashes in the periphery

catch the glance 

of something known,

given again,

intimate, intricate

connections

reaffirmed

in the luminous folds

of solitude.

**

For A. D.

Tell me of this temple

of the open sky,

this not-so-secret sanctuary

of hills and byways, this tradition

of all experience. Speak to me

of this heritage of the heart, of your kin,

your patron saints, the spirit

of the lowest bow.

Tell me your living aspiration,

your favored prayer

for the lips.

**

But I went ahead and lied just the same.

It was closer to the truth, that lie.

Told as the last of the sun’s rays passed

into shadow.     I told it   

so she could smile.

**

No one knows I’m here. And with you now gone,

who will speak with me of the stars, of the lights in the hills

that glitter where the limbs of the great eucalyptus once gathered

the whole of the night. A warm cloak of unknowing, buffer

against the chill of unwanted distance.

**

Heat rises with the dust,

lays like a yoke across your shoulders,

an oxen in time, ever thirsting, ever forward,

but at whose bidding?

**

River of Words

Along the river, one can travel light,

for all that’s necessary is given—early whispers

illumine shadows, direction takes, flow determines

and breath holds true for sound—all else,

just added weight.

**

Witness

And as it does, the world and all that it is shifts

and all about us again accounts for itself anew.

**

On the road in Chiapas,

under a near-full-moon,

fired sugar cane.

**

Here

Here, arrived here today, where

every star holds space sacred, where

every breath ever taken returns, where

notions of must and ought

are rendered superfluous—here.

September, October, November

It’s not poetry as such,

though I’ve read some and will again,

but the poets themselves

and what they’ve become

through the search implied

in the poetic—

shadows of movement

before explanation, the curve of words

as formed in the wind

and the wonder and heartache

extended in lines

of questions never closed…

**

Reentering the world

from half-slumber into daylight

delights returning senses.

Awakened crossing back,

tenderness precedes every thought

and remembrance affirms

the resonant sky

with the gladness

of love.

**

It came as at the breaking edge of a restful dream

that just as morning makes its familiar way, I too

know how this is done—the ground of the earth

is always prepared, the air responds as asked;

light meets eyes, birdsong the ears

and myriads of skins speak to touch.

So let questions dance, let thoughts make their run,

for I too know how

this is done.

**

He leaned forward, just a bit,

you know,

like a little bow,

and said

in a soft voice

that the world is always giving…

**

Each morning, wading the stream,

the current’s ebb and flow, till evening

time to rest, 

like a fish facing upstream

into all it brings, ever watchful

of hovering shadows.

**

With gratitude

Often as not, I wake in confusion,

long-nursed doubts surfacing

refreshed, a’swirl.

But each day comes

not so much with a plan,

as with its own breath

that we ride, a’swirl in our dreams

or awake—either way is OK. 

**

Jet lagged

11/11 seems to have been misplaced somewhere

on the couch where I lay most of the day delirious

engrossed in speaking images graciously passing

the glowing screen—without pause.

This morning though, 11/12, is right where I’d have it

here under the pillow next to my head, waiting and ready

to roll over the edge to outside and in…

to the drizzle-wet streets

of proper coming home—everything in its time always

all we need.

**

Rome

Shadows spill across the page

and onto the floor—only to be wiped clean

by passing clouds.

**

Mallorca

Morning winds clear the way for light,

muscling clouds aside

along with the dark.

Free of the need to signal,

the last two stars

leave too.

**

Early night—early morning.

Dark, star-studded sky.

With Orion right there, how far

from home can we really be?

**

Casciano

Leaves on vines

in the orchard rows

have begun to yellow.

Burnt by summer,

weathered in passing rains,

some lean closer to orange

to whisper of the coming fall.

**

To Frienz

Hard to tell what’s being sung,

but railroad songs in any tongue

are as clear as the tracks are long.

**

Our method for learning

Rome’s bus system: confusion—we succeed,

get to where we got,

and back again.

**

Traveling through Tuscany with a GPS

named Emily, I become quite attached.

Over and over I ask, “Where am I?”

And over and over again

she patiently replies:

“You are here.”

**

Barcelona

Under the moon-like light

of the street lamp, the intersection

opens its silence

to the swaying shadows above

and a single

crinkled

leaf

lets

go.

**

Cordona—lighting candles with Marghareta

From the remains of the old Roman wall

overlooking the spreading countryside,

along the steep, coble-covered path,

muraled images

of the stations of the cross

leading the way,

the street-clothed priest

motions us in

to the sun-patched sanctuary—

leaving us alone

with the Sant.

**

As the conversation turns to “art”

I find myself thinking of people taking time

for morning coffee together

at tables at the edge of sidewalks

on traffic filled streets,

seemingly wanting to be right there.

That canvas.

September's End

We sit with our backs to the east.

A small house in a small town, overlooking

a small valley,

homes on the opposite slopes

looking back.

Mornings—if early enough—you can trace

the sun’s progress by looking west—hill tops first,

the softest touch. Then the slow pushing down

of shadows out of the way reveals

flashed signals of the sun’s rising presence

igniting east-facing windows like bursts of light

shining out from the earth itself.

There was a window out there

morning last

with strength enough to light the whole of our interior

with warm-glow—made me to turn and to smile

in silent amazement

into the source. The sun, you know,

has its own sense of time, its own sense of space,

its own sense of our individual contours. And although

we are a part of its broader concerns,

the best we can likely do is as best we can to attend

to its finding us. And to rest

in that attention

to where we are and to when.

**

Ah, good friend, you’ve set me free

in sun-soaked by-ways, along wind-stroked hills,

and narrow corridors of shadow graced with light.

Namaste

**

There is intensity of focus that comes of us

as natural and as certain and as easy as winds

that drench the face and the edge, the back

and the very end point

of every needle of every pine

within their reach—and then to all the rest,

they breathe the wish that blows behind

their rivered and rippling kiss.

**

Vows we find we’ve made:

looking back, I’d have to say,

a long-standing inclination toward silence

and the solitary, from birth even, yet always as these

are drawn through the intimacies of the few, the nuclear

and as carried on within the broad strokes and patch-work

of the greater quiet—the urge to acts of mutuality,

of respect and consideration and the wish to understand

these enduring visions of love at play

in the daily comings and goings that define the ordinary,

the universal, the connecting groundswell of commonness

that is our collective humanness—and this,

it seems for me, is the center-less center to which

I have leveled my most heart-felt claims

of citizenship.

           

**

Near-ecstatic revelation

The lift of our living within

              the firm embrace of holy name

is found

not on the in-breath,

                    but of the out-going.

Namuamidabutsu

**

After far too long a time

trying to prepare for seventy,

I’ve somehow come to let it go

to itself—this turning grace

called aging—and, 

as it does what it does and what it is,

to use the best of all I have as such,

and as I am, to see it through

all the way through its grace filled,

self-fulfilling way.

**

Whose voice is it

you think

you hear,

yours?

And so

of the words,

yours too?

**

Often after the fact, I pull back in wonder

at the somewhat frantic nature of the search

for that which I already know to be there, yet

nonetheless continue to need to reconfirm,

like seeking out the earliest cast of the sun’s rays,

as if to assure myself the warmth remains

there in the light where last left—and for us,

the spoken name is like this too,

the emergence and re-emergence

of the warmth of embodied memory

made manifest; no less a flicker

than passing thoughts, but tangibly so.

**

And…

implies connecting and also connection,

it implies greater numbers of, and so,

addition, so then, progression

and causation, relation and variety—

it implies abundance…

and so in such a world

might well then serve

the preferred expression

of gratitude, of praise

and of prayer…and…

**

And

the deep

silence

bottomless

well

embodied

here

in this one

sustains

forever

resonant

tremors

of our

collective

living-dying.

**

John Muir Wilderness

                   Fleming Lake--Elevation 9,700 feet

The mountains here drop their shadows

just as the rays of the coming sun begin to arrive,

water offers ripples to the first gentle gusts,

and pines ruffle and wave. To follow the urge

to sit at the edge in a place like this is an act of faith,

a free-fall ride on the wakes

of star-streams—birds swoop and twitter, answers

brittle and fall, frames and reference shift

to the boundless possibilities of the humbled few

who discover the truly praiseworthy.

Here, it’s not asked, how old one is,

but exclaimed: How far we have come!

Here, the wise are those who hold their tongue.

Listen to the rest.