Meeting with my teacher
looks like this:
like morning fog
brushing canyon tops
releases streams
that lead the way back.
**
The old masters wrote
of winter’s long nights,
of emptied trees, of snow’s weight
sighed away in spring streams,
rivered trickles of dew drops
carrying oceans carrying
sun-lit moon light.
Of these things, I would write.
**
Can’t say, even at this age, I know who I am.
Keep writing, walking, and the rest follows, mostly
work of love. Incense at day’s end, a song,
moments of quiet, together—as all comes to rest,
the wish for justice in a troubled world.
**
For Juan Carter
--Spring Equinox
Half way through my walk,
half way, crossing the black top,
a banana slug….
**
Fluid and porous:
the distinctions we think
hold and frame our lives.
**
Curious, that those
with heart beats, resist both change
and its presumed end.
**
After meeting with the teacher,
relief—he doesn’t know, either.
**
I write and people read. Amazing
and no small thing—liberated horizons
mean everything.
**
Tending as we do,
as a matter of habit, toward loneliness,
we are in fact never alone.
**
Looking closely, I see my living
largely haphazard, unfulfilled intentions
and broken promises…
Namuamidabutsu
**
Any place will do
Truth-seeking poets seek nowhere to stand,
pass away their time watching
for flashes and flickers in the flow,
following what catches attention
for the moment—leave it all at that.
Just a life.
**
Night rains slow and cease,
darkness holds still,
and doves wait their signal.
**
The pause…
It’s often the first words, fresh
off the tongue that are most telling,
even while we’re not so sure
what was meant to be said.
Is it possible to rest there
in the question, savor the uncertainty,
before circling, tightening?
**
**
Cool morning. The pine
lets its scent fall
to the street.
**
Why poetry?
Fundamental to human spirit is unity,
thoroughgoing correspondence within
the entirety of energies of the universe
—which is why we can’t catch it.
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