The Tradition of All Experience

Before what we call morning,

there’s another that lives

where dark turns,

where doubt finds room

near the surface, 

or along the shore

where light weighs time,

lays claim to all experience

as its own.

**

And so, I’ve taken the pen at times,

at different times so many times

that the weight and heft

often remains un-discerned,

nor separate a charge from heartbeat

or the lift and rise of pulse—such it has become

of its own so thorough, so as to

reframe the world, steady the step

and simplify the things that need be carried.

**

“…because every syllable counts.”

                                       Cid Corman

The thrust of our living

letting loose our careening way

propelled and re-propelled millions

of little moves—is who we are—countless

the triggers off those little moves:

the greater mystery

               of who we will be.

**

Words—swarms of bees and honey—

**

It would be,

it is,

accurate

enough to say 

I don’t know…

**

Blue ink

marks the page

a way

beyond black

and yet

close akin

enough

to remind

one of

the other

as tracks

assorted

swirls and

broken lines

make their

own way

there on lines

that now here

hold weight and light:

a single point

in all time.

**

To turn

right there

and meet

the eyes

of the friend

you’d been

looking

for all

along…

don’t let go

that look…

**

The glint of moonlight

  on the rim of the bowl

     on the table at my feet

—at times a lonely way,     

         but never alone.

**

Fog collects thick as doubt

this morning. Even the closest trees,

rootless, shadowy slips, like distant cousins,

reliant upon familial resemblance.

**

One rejects nothing, the other

accepts everything.

Different times, different tongues,

linked on the lure of language in line.

And for each,

though treating margins differently,

each day begins

a blank page, listening.

**

Answering the last hours of dark on the mountain’s trails,

sitting among the chilled stones, watching light

begin its work,

earth’s textures, what night holds safe, why stars

lean so close, how morning returns

already full.

**

There are days when utterance crumbles

as it meets the air, when the most careful intention

stays jagged and torn and reliable lies just beyond reach.

On these days, let grip slip to those slower movements,

to those recesses deeper than doubt, return to that refinement

where inevitable resides.

**

And what if the world arrives,

full distance of all time, present

at your doorstep?

**

Mist and low-hanging clouds.

The moon, a luminous smudge.

But the owl calls, quick to scold

those who turn away too soon.