Year's end--2012

….

and what can any of us do but dream

of peace and act accordingly

and once again begin ?

…

                  Sam Hamill,

                   Awakening in Buenos Aires

Brisbane CA

As morning’s darkness

falters, an owl calls softly:

another end in sight…

**

Approaching Buckeye Canyon 12/20/12

The willows along quarry road yellow their leaves,

moist air lifts soil to smell, a jay glides,

swoops, gathers,

again glides.

Beneath my boots, softened earth

sounds its internal song,

but quiet holds.

I don’t know how we find peace, except

places like this, times, given

like this,

speak its certainty.

Tomorrow marks solstice, prospects of storms.

But now, today, that blue sky

swoops low enough

for us to touch.

**

Rainy day riff

Rain drips. Bamboo leaves

shudder under the trellis.

Roots take every drop.

What a life this is.

The morning whiffs of incense.

The wooden Buddha

from Bali next to the stone

monk from Thailand—both silent.

Sam Hamill’s poems,

five or seven syllables

per line, float the air,

drifting thoughtful kindnesses,

hard humilities.

Quiet presences

felt in the trail of the eye,

the turn of the page,

deepening shifts and 

hints of recognition of 

friendship, trustworthy

counsel, gratefulness he’s here

in the working of these words.

We’re the same age, he and I,

paths that cross, not match, meeting

in the landscape of common

tongue, nourished by the music

of rain-soaked bamboo.

**

How the afternoon’s

perfect feel of aloneness

breaks, with company.

**

Slow down enough to sit,

to come to that wider place

where pulse speaks, to listen

to the larger conversation,

there where words just begin

to do their work.

**

In the front garden,

white-petalled blossoms

bounce on the breeze

soundlessly.

**

As we lie in bed,

together breathing the morning light,

rains flash away

into the waiting silence

of heavy misted horizons

holding still in their place.

**

Insight

It comes like a leaf,

sprouted and mothered,

nurtured and exposed

to all its needs,

then let go

into everything

that’s ever been

there, finally whole, free.

**

Angkor Wat-Angkor Thom-Ta Phum

Cambodia 11-23-12

As we walk these old and sculpted stones,

imagining the fullest scope of human ingenuity

and expression,

cicada sing their whistled songs,

from within the leaves overhead, all around,

from before the rocks were brought.

**

Bangkok 11-30-12

The last day of our stay here

and thoughts of returning home

attempt to turn this day

into something other

than itself—“do something hard,”

the teacher says—“nature’s already

taken sides, the small things.”

Squeezed by limitation, 

the unlimited makes

for tasting that lingers, but will not

last. Do something hard, but

“not just anything.”

                              fom Apichart Sakdichalatorn,

                                   Every way is a way

**

Real teachers often carry

suggestions of weight so pervasive

their every gesture founds a ground

upon which all else appears to stand.

Not that they know everything,

but that their knowing is unequivocal,

not needing of anything but itself.

This can be as startling and as subtle

as the well-sounded poem

and just as meaningful

to be a part of.

**

Scottsdale, AZ  12/28/12

Well, we wouldn’t yet call it evening,

vibrant sun still lighting the clear blue sky,

but notions of softenings begin to gather

in the fabric of the air—birds, noticing,

gather too, worry amongst the leaves—perspective

is important when witnessing the falling sun.