Tuesday, November 3, 2026

notes and things....

 




When we loose our balance, we learn 

ours is less than certain, but forgiving, 

and even though taken for granted, 

much appreciated. 



**



Summer settles slow here

as fog leaves and September

daylight loses length…


traces bare, yet felt, soft 

and breath-held,

like a poem.



**



—strategy…well, ok…the desire 

     

     to show the things of our world

       as they show us,

       

           the effort to be true as we can  

             to the truths things bring us, 


               to work from there 



**



In day’s light before the touch

of rays of sun, 


rolled closed buds chill brushing fingers, 

pass dreams bees may dream ?



**



Warm morning, brown-tipped leaves

tell of fall’s return, in its time,


green to yellow and red,

full to empty.



**



Moving, just now moved

to the edge of complaint,  


there looking over to see 

deep pooled silence, 


still, undisturbed, mirror 

wondering eyes.



**



Having glaucoma, my eyes refuse

to cooperate with abrupt intrusions

of darkness or of light, insist 

on deliberate revelation from both, 

clarity the end goal I’ve no choice 

but to go along with: 


             slow, steady steps.



**



San Francisco summers

Mark Twain wrote of as winters,

blustery and cold like this September 

morning, just outside city lines

that capture so many hearts, minds

and imaginations, not in spite of

but because…



**



The wife reads more these days,

me less, more inclined to write, pages

for future discovery I suppose. But no,

really, neither for some then, nor them,

but for now and me, my love of pen 

on page, and all to be seen 

and learned in this. 



**



These journal pages will line the way 

these next weeks


through peoples and countries 

north on the globe, 


mountains, lakes, snow banks, 

music and art, cascading  


open pages 

taking 


whatever next reaches 

to touch 


the trust here.



**



hesitation tells

purpose pursues

intention does



**



watching the second hand

click it’s turn around and around, 

not a care in the world for the counting 

going on around it



**



waiting happens

waiting, no need 

to rush 



**



—Lake Lucerne


waking, mountain early,

to brisk cold, chisel cut coffee

dark and hot—awake 

means alive here, embodied,

joyful, fierce—we just go



**



morning light in Zermatt

finds the Matterhorn first


Sunday, September 20, 2026

Silence




One part of the silence

of writing mornings for me

is the absence of hearing aids,

still in their box.


But thinking of silence as sound lost

or absent, fragments, distorts 

wholeness always at work.


The earth, there, each time we extend a foot,

just there, we know. But when it trembles,

we know it a different way.


And when it gathers its sounds closer

to center, our heartbeats signal…


and we hear more deeply too…



**



On this final August day  

before school kids meet Friday 

head-on, the young woman bends 


to retrieve her dog’s leavings,

and rain drops 


on the three of us.


The dog pulls my way, 

she a-way, diverts her gaze.


In the rain, dog and me, OK



**



Of the last clean page

in my journal you can’t see


but this small part

of its fulfillment.



**



Mirrored in the big window

across the room, my face,


over houses on the hill

below morning fog


below sky clearing to

not quite blue,


a part, one piece, to be sure,

even nicely framed,


just one fading sliver 

of a very moving 


picture…



**



Learn to fly…


the line in a song for the young

catches aging ears, ageless heart, 

ageless mind taking its wings



**



Savoring Wm Bronk’s poems,

scholarly, dense, that rigorously reveal

our incurable foolishness, and the light

we find ourselves in anyway.



**



If I really knew why

we found ourselves arguing,

probably I’d stay mad. But, 

really, I can’t quite catch 

its drifting away.



**



Whatever comes, what finds its way

is fruit of thought, of sense


and feel, ink for the pen the open page

takes in as love-taps.



**



A Monday morning hammer

works its way through

quiet streets, almost rain

and heavy dew,


through half-screened windows

above the wooden desk,

to gently carpeted floor

where bared feet rest.



**



—meeting at City Hall


The rush we feel when hearing

others speak lovingly

of what we love


cannot be spoken of lovingly 

enough for what it reveals

to us of who we are.



**



Of Wm Bronk, again, saying we listen for sound

and buried beneath noise find silence


finally heard. Silence, always there, not of time, 

needing nothing of time to be—if we 


but turn, it’s there, been there, doing—nothing 

for us to do:    silence   



**



First-light coffee,

strong black.


Looking out, 

over the cup-rim eyes, 


squint.



**



The last coffee-swallow

over last night’s dessert muffin 

asks a deeper breath

of appreciation…gladly given 

with a sigh.