More with less...

More with less—poems

from May 2013

There was once a man who wrote

each day, pen to page to swirl and to scratch,

to press into meaning the meandering lines,

to trace the tracks along the shore

or traceless futures of untellable trails

that lift into the sky.

And some mornings of summer’s longer days

when dappled sun light reached to touch the hand

as it touched the pen that touched the page,

he’d pause, as always pleased to bow his head,

then again begin to move the pen.

**

It’s that we love, that

we love, that moves us most.

**

Dimpled to opaque,

the colored sheet of cultured glass

hung from the bamboo trellis,

sways with the weight

of captured sun beams.

**

To Jonathan and Victoria

Phrase was the term she used,

the recurring theme in the piece he played,

not passage, nor line, more the rhythmic murmur,

the sounded pulse insistent of ought but itself,

self-contained, readily moved where best received,

but best understood in the gathered hush

of pass and return,

over and again.

**

To wake in darkness before stirring birds

to find winds finally quiet,

fog but broken mist in chilled air

as the first of the sun

lights into the clearing skies

and yet to walk almost blind

with churning argument—it is this then,

it is this, is it not, that condition called human.

**

Like those tall pink blossoms in the garden

jostle and sway, thoughts too speak

of what’s being said.

**

Call it meditation

if you will, if you must

call it something,

but know the quiet mind

is itself already

the work.

**

The ancient masters do not quibble—joy

is real, as is travail; life is rife with both.

Skillful negotiation is key,

compassion its natural associate.

**

Brief auto-biography

Having come to know, this alone leads.

Not hope nor fear, not past nor future,

but this now, this sounded song,

this trail and curve of the breaking wave,

the spread and swell, the articulate turn

of each and every word.

**

Sandino David

In the park at the top of Fruitvale

with the grandson asleep,

each at his age in grass in sun

and all that has occurred

and is done—breezes rush,

leaves tremble, grasses crease at our feet,

and the sky that whispers its mark

on this time in this place as right.

**

The ripple speaks

of current

that moves it

to speak of

its movement—

thus, the stream.

**

to Irma

colored glass—filtered light—glinting

silver—shifting shapes—passing

eyes delight…

Spring poems

April and May 2013

Watching the inmates

The open page takes

everyone, just as they are.

Heads bow. Words begin.

**

By example—a haiku with commentary

Like leaves pulled by winds

hold tight to branched extensions

of roots holding firm.

Even before our fingers form, culture

begins to show us how—but different grips

are possible--some even letting go.

**

Wonder:  heart freed of thinking.

Calculation stretched to snapped

does not prevent fulsome release

for those who’ve come to see

the more

that makes it

what it is.

**

Dove calls alone

in early light.

Clocks pulse

the empty kitchen.

Reflection gifts

ever-embracing space

and silence.

**

Somehow the first of May has come and gone

a mark on a calendar unremembered 

much like myriad single breaths thoughtlessly taken

then given away that pass nonetheless

through traceless minutes’ days—but for that

slight attentive pause, just there passed.

**

Days stretch in summer,

lighted lingering coming

slowly to night stars.

**

Chanting Buddha’s name

Unfathomably vast a matrix of realms of truths

carries our each and every muttering—resonant thereof.

**

Coastal grasslands, swelled prairie bluffs,

tales of ancient oceans outlasted.

**

Saint Francis, oh, Saint Francis,

how many, many times your

image has moved me.

Your saintly qualities though,

they’re human,

aren’t they.

**

It took some time

to see the time

to preach

is done—so let

the poems come.

**

While some words say,

         poems do,

participate, engage.

Written or read,

        spoken or heard,

poems move…

**

What part of nothing more to do isn’t clear? Snakes,

over time, leave their skin behind. The screen-door

out to the back porch, it slams every time—mornings,

over coffee, I write; evenings burn incense and chant.

**

You

swoop in

like a boardwalk gull

to snatch up guarded bits

of joy…

then lift off

in dust and tufts

of disregard

for those

who would but share,

not swallow.

Sad.

So, so sad.

**

Altar incense burns

a barely visible thread

of tenuous tie

to tradition

nearly faceless

save the solidity of voice

and so we mutter and chant

and sing affirmations of foundations

of living breath.

**

Soft pink streaks sky clearing clouds to blue.

Garden flowers toll stillness.

**

No one to wake

at this hour,

the barking dog

celebrates

with everyone

within ear-shot;

even passing cars slow 

to hear

and not break

this living stream

rarely heard

as music.