the heavy cold this morning
blankets like last night
quilted sleeping,
age and change taking me
where they
will me—
me here,
listening
**
what does it mean
that fingers grip
the phantom pen
before I ask to tell,
that bells tinkle
before breezes reach—
what does growing old
before growing up mean for
last days, for beginnings
finally seen
already arrived,
where endings cease
to matter, where song
always sings
**
He seems
the fool
to dance
all ways
alone—
not true.
His dance,
his heart
always
includes
you, you
and you.
And he
would say,
how could
it not,
how could
it not.
**
The light
quietly
opens
itself
for us
to find
ourselves
in it.
**
Unrelenting rains
wash worms
from hillsides
to mud
aside the road—
poppies grow
everywhere.
**
distant cousins,
snails and flowers are certain
slow is not a word
**
humored by the rains,
chill and flower petals wait
for word from the sun
**
storms wait their turn too,
but nothing in nature
ever hesitates
**
do poems come first,
or the pictures—
yes, he said
**
in the west, the moon
grows to half—is all it shows—
stars are gone too
**
like ripples on sand
when the tides pull out,
poems run the tongue
**
—Buckeye Canyon
and I feel the breeze
round the petals and ripple
my skin, and ask
all I missed, is there more,
and it says, everything’s here:
white shards underfoot
by the thousands: shell mound time,
cultures and peoples—
budding buckeye, smooth and leafless,
speak of spring, time and culture free
**
—haiku
what three lines of curves
say is heard—how much more so,
four yellow petals
**
Dreamed last night of breath
breathing, how its ride carries
living time and more
and how OK we are, that
it holds us, doesn’t bind…
**
To breathe, to know we are
breathing, is wholesome practice
of itself the work.
**
Wife complains, so I
trim the beard this morning.
In the mirror—who’s that ?
**
Wish I could tell more
helpful, but this is the good
I get these days.
**
I think I told you
I visited Ryokoan once—
there, his hut empty,
he left words in trees and leaves
I’ve given back best I can.
**
Early sandwich lunch
in front of the big window—
blue sky, green hills, peace.
**
Seclusion gently
ends—twilight in the garden,
windows left open.
**
For us, language is—
free-flowing, milk-tissued reach,
touch and connections:
semantic productions, weaves
of voices and echoes that mean…
*
sidewalks and trees shed
nighttime darkness—owls linger,
dawn comes—all no fuss
birds a’top trees watch,
blossoms blue ’n white sing…
*
pauses count, you know—
I know you do, so I do
whatever it takes
taking its place counting
accordingly, like this, here:
… …
*
it occurs to me,
or is it that I remember,
something someone said
sometime, that it’s all just one
long poem, after all :
a vow then, to try
to never again
use the period (.)
**
moon slivers east-
south-east, low clouds clear,
moisture lifts, sky is
**
vanishing points
disappear
unseen
right here
in front of us
**
sound curls off the tongue
whatever throat throws it—
the music of meaning
caught by the ear,
recognized
by the heart
