Traceless in the night sky,
distance-hidden light,
yet to be heard.
**
Where words fail, gassho:
hand gesture of whispered essentials,
dance of timeless connections,
myriad unbound breaths
commingling whole beyond
conception—an ocean reality,
where “wet” has no meaning.
gassho: palms together
**
Sky…
the sky
doesn’t lie
takes in
everything
everyone
just the same
empty
**
Threshold…
Have you ever, at this time
of day—the sun dropping so early
below even the lowest slopes, light
shifting radical grey, sudden chill
fallen—have you ever been here
like this, and not turned
as to your lover’s lips
just as they say your name ?
**
“My shadow,” I call him,
walks the morning streets
with me, never talks,
never mentions his name.
**
Words
Though ill-advised
to try to make them say
more than they do, they
often do.
**
The flag
on the pole
on the corner
at dawn.
Folds flutter—
breeze
barely
perceptible.
Presidents’ day.
**
Like this mountain
holds itself
and breathes me,
we can live
this way, alone
with others.
**
Shadows slant.
“Too soon,”
the wife says.
Day’s sun sets
south west,
moon rises.
Clear and cold,
chilled air
calls the sky.
Crystalled points
of light
to help us
find our way.
**
Hanging out with the poet—
watching the moon with Tu Fu,
some twelve-hundred years between us,
the translator says,
as he tips and arcs its image
in tones as soft as its light.
Twelve-hundred years. Tu Fu,
can that be so ?
**
Lingering questions:
Does life unfold, or do we unwrap it—and, if so,
what does it matter?
Do I learn first,
or does my teaching finally teach it to me?
Can lack of ambition be achieved—can we strive
to be satisfied?
What have we done to deserve so much
light—and what of those who continue to love us, even so ?
And what does all this tell us of how we might better live
the time left ?
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