Sound of a calling voice

When I walked this morning,

cloud-cover was heavy, and even now,

so short awhile later,

some earlier breaking reversed,

the sense of rain returned.

But for a moment,

ascending the lower slopes,

light broke the horizon silver-white

--so luminous—

breath caught my throat,

my body stilled right there,

feet to pavement—it passed,

as I said,

but in that moment, it was there

and I there with it.

Our sense of self, sense of world, co-arise as simultaneous movements mutually imprinting seemingly separate surfaces of being—but only seemingly separate, our teachers tell us. World transformed is self transformed, and vice-verse. The problem then, not them, but me.

I, as do you, ache often these days, despair at the pain, frustration and horror of conditions in immediate surroundings and in the world at large. And in the face of it all, the counsel to focus on self, seems, well, ludicrous, self-serving, even non-responsive.

But no matter how legitimate, how compelling the call to relieve the suffering, to do something, political, social or religious, our collective failure to attain sustained resolution is obvious—we live, have lived within the results of such failed efforts our entire lives.

Unless the self is seen clearly, the world remains immersed in cloud-cover. And self is seen most clearly in immediate relation, not in the abstract. Think of it. Buddha lived over 2,500 years ago, awaking in a world of human relations and conditions very similar to ours. He found, like us, that he could not ignore the confusion he witnessed, but he did not start a movement. He turned to those around him, those who he could touch, those who were within the reach of his voice, whose voices reached his ears, and he spoke with them, walked with them, lived with them. That’s all.

Movements are fine, as long as our individual movement, up close and personal, emanates clarity and integrity—this is the most valuable contribution we ever make. This work doesn’t do for good sound bites, cannot be tallied or twittered or measured. And it is never finished. It’s the real work. In and of itself it resonates in ways and in time far beyond anything we can imagine. Think about it.

Cold Light

Cold Light

Diamond-like clarity travels cold

the manifold currents, cracks self-concern,

reveals self-suffering, crumbles

the crooked walls of the darkness

of presumed otherness

This far-reaching indifference of wisdom

vision unfolds an always lurking compassion

only when fused in communal warmth,

only by passage in the movement of breath

Breath, the reach of hearts,

the rhythm of living and dying,

the reach of solitary voices

meeting in the night.

**

Looking west to cross-valley slopes,

street lamps blink and disappear in the mist.

Yet even at this waking hour,

except for one or two, the many homes there

remain strangely silent.

The small, framed light

emanating from my own, I realize then,

is a certain signal of life

to even the most casual glance

from the other side.

Amazing, my teacher would say,

even as we go along our own selfish way,

we shine with possibilities

only others will see.

The Circle

He’s turned sixteen today, early this morning to be exact

—his great grandfathers, both of them passing before their own

were born—and I now sit and prepare to sit in circle

a first time, with a grandchild sixteen years full into life.

That it will wax and wane, the sense of it, the fullness of it

always remains, and it is of this I wish to tell him,

of the fullness, of receiving and of giving, of reciprocity,

of the flow that sustains.

And that it is the most simple acts, the acts of recognition

of participation as the gift that fulfills, as the gift that speaks

of the character and of the direction

of true human being.

This, my wish, I told him for his living,

the very same I hold for my own

and too for you

who hear.

The tree in front of Starbucks

The tree in front of Starbucks

Berkeley mornings are not like others,

I think to myself, waking earlier

than usual to unfamiliar sounds, lightly

traced dreams leaving

only as I relent and rise.

The wispy slip of tree has survived,

still bent but taller, leafless

this time, this time

of year.

It was spring

I believe, last time I looked out

from this window, the morning sky,

building tops, looking down

on the street.

And the tree

bent, in a bow perhaps,

to solitary passers-by

who offer in exchange, perhaps

a glance.

As for me, of course

I remember this tree, look for it as I walk

strange streets away from home, for a signal

in the distance, a signal of something here,

carried-remembered

and found, an intimacy

rekindled in the warmth of recognition

of simply what is,

and all there is,

right here.

Light

I watch the light

as it comes in the front

of the house in dulled hues,

blunt against the tree’s leaves,

the windowed bamboo.

Different from the back’s expanse,

across the small valley

still and asleep, breathing

illumined.

It moves as it will,

answers in its own time and manner,

always full, but to conditions

as it sees.

Changes as it sees fit, and in the end,

of its own accord,

it leaves.

I’ve never heard anyone

speak of it as selfish.

Other poems from the month of March, and before

A chance meeting with the neighbor

opens a community garden project

of pears grafted to pears, to apples, and apples

to apples, and more plans

in the offing—after a year or so

of cooled communications,

we’ve stumbled into watching together

for the coming work of spring,

over both sides of the fence.

**

I’d not heard it like this before, as morning woke

the upper slopes across the way, it spoke

of time’s whispers—death, it said, is but a change in light.

**

Our teachers,

sometimes disguised

as friends,

often slip by unnoticed,

leaving gifts behind

just the same.

**

Did he say,

as we hunched

over lunch,

did he say,

We’re not grateful

for this food,

but for

that great heart

that loves

because

we cannot.

**

Poet, Cid Corman, counted

syllables, because, he said,

syllables--every one--count.

**

While everyone talks

of the cold, the coming snows,

fruit trees push petals.

**

Dialects of light

The sky starts toward blue,

then slips into the high cast gray

of coming rains—in the garden

daffodils hold to their own.