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.