I have gained a comprehension of truth
from minute matters rather than…texts or…
meditation. —Dae Hæng Sunim
heart quickens
at the foot of the trail
sun breaks the horizon
**
Through and through the breath
works the wonder
of wind-song.
**
Once upon a place
footsteps took me headlong
through ocean mists
roaming canyon walls
in search of bottom
to rest—I let my feet
point the way.
**
—My oldest friend
showed me
many first-time things: jazz,
Greenwich Village,
Beat authors,
Thunderbird wine,
how trust asks no
payback, how silly-
ness is joy-full,
now shows me time
for our dying
is close.
I’m told he smiles
at my stupid
phone call
jokes.
**
She calls, says you’re gone.
Curtains curl with the breeze—blue sky,
the color of your eyes.
**
Empty Labor Day
freighters dot its face—the bay
glimmers of sunlight.
**
Small flocks of small birds
in morning hillside sunlight
keep their distance.
**
Walking. Wondering
what’s been told.
Breeze eases me.
**
blue botanist flags
planted in brown grass and weeds
wait for spring to see
**
Nap time on the couch
yesterday left pain
in the neck,
morning coffee leaves
a clearing mind,
eyes take in new day,
old one gone
along with
the pain
in the neck—my wife
goes shopping:
transience,
we live it.
**
The breeze comes
waving through
open window
channels
of relief-giving moves
that surrender
day’s heat
to the street
it takes in.
**
I keep walking,
jays keep calling,
phone lines
keep swinging.
**
For me it’s been nembutsu,
even when I try to turn away,
it doesn’t: nembutsu, for me
—not a matter of what I do,
rather what actually is
being done…that.
**
Waking early—lingering darkness
shows earth’s shift and turn
toward the fall of summer months
to winter’s distant coming.
**
Voice
a presence
irreplaceable
to Heart
**
All this talk
of crossing over,
great returns, etc.,
so much blather
about nothing.
But it’s been good,
like blossoming
flowers, but mostly like
wild grasses and weeds !!
**
Where have we gone
so that we think
of return—where
do we think there
is to go ?
**
Like all other bodies
ours wither—earth-matter,
air and time all have something
to say about it.
**
A No 2 pencil, HB Soft, you know,
the yellow wooden ones
are what my friend the artist uses,
so I do—when he tells me
“its nice,” the world smiles
the way a child’s does.
**
Buddha’s name
bubbles up
silently
calling lips
to play too.
**
Seems like lots of things
these days shake with anger
heavy airways
that I don’t feel
when I’m not facing
the TV.
A handful of people, at best, decide
how the day’s headlines will read,
then go home for dinner.
Their tables may be set the same as ours,
but maybe not.
**
Mists so thick, all drips—
trees, grasses, me—petals flash
rippled weaving winds.
**
(noun as presence felt)
Hummingbird waits
on Phone Line,
Cement Buddha with Leaf
and Almond Tree.
No longer lost, Breath
grants renewed
commitment:
Air chills bare Arms, Thought
rises and falls, Quiet blankets—yellow
Flower lifts in bunches,
Pots along Porch Railing drink Coolness—
Dog barks, Plane passes,
Bird calls out.
**
—Pilgrim
Morning quiet,
orange sunrise,
wingless sky—
where shadowed streets
take every step
offered there a place to stay
and to leave from.
Morning quiet, wingless sky,
care-full shadows.
**
To turn
to see
in
window framed
sky
stars
blink back.
**
**
**
—Some thoughts on
the current state of union:
Not objects,
poems actively reveal poets
to themselves. Reading deeply,
truly hearing, wipe away
dusts too.
*
But for leather chair
crinkles, morning carries
surprise chills, open windows
wandered by silence seeking
itself, yet ready for
whatever
when it comes.
*
Thinking something new, then
yesterday’s poem interrupts
with news about itself.
*
My day-to-day mind
is like leaves
the tree watches
blow in the wind.
*
Or those days when substance
seems imperative, but everything
lingering about is nearer
to something rather silly,
weightless—I mean, wha-d-ya-doo
with self-importance
when you just can’t seem
to get it to fit ?
*
We can hang on, go back,
resurrect,
or at least we think we can,
think, that is, from here-now
bout there-then,
or we can leave it all in the dust
it really is
to walk there into that blue sky,
or even better
into this one here.
