Reconsiderations

Nanao Sakaki, Japanese poet, who switched 

from grass sandals to hiking boots, depending on 

which island needed walking, once said, about writing

poems: if you can’t remember, it doesn’t belong.

Lao Tsu, old Taoist sage, counsels; “With nothing

to do, everything is done.”          And William Stafford, 

just a poet from here, puts it like this: 

when you’re trying hard to get something done, 

what distracts you is who you really are.

**

Litany—a series of petitions or prayers, 

                               recited and responded to

This morning’s trailside litany

begins with a silver-breasted jay, 

quiet California lilac, pearly everlasting 

and farewell to spring; 

gold sticky-monkey, golden poppy,

browning grasses, checker bloom and 

paint brush; hummingbird sage, wild rose 

hidden in shade; buckeye blossoms, 

hillside scrub, poison oak and soap plant.

From high on the ridge, sun over fog 

over the valley to the east, a voice 

overhead:  a hawk, circles 

and arches its wings, 

earthward.

**

Night sky

And the world and all of it opens

a canopy warm and dark and glimmering 

invitations to travel more deeply in.

**

Saichi’s Emptiness

My eyes can’t clear the date on the watch,

but the sky is spotless and still with me, nothing

stirring but air of itself, no wind, no breeze, save

breathing multitudes, millions, like weeds 

and grasses and millions more—even rocks

are drunk with it, crumble with it, dust rise 

with it, taking us in to its body whole 

with us all, all the way and more.

**

Just after dawn, showers

enough to wet the streets,

sun-caught clouds 

turning pink.

**

The poem

approaches

the door 

close enough 

for eternity’s

shadow 

to pass.

**

Eternity suggests 

we drop everything but 

what’s right here now,

forever.

**

Attention: 

the one thing of ourselves 

we can ever truly give.

**

At this time in life…

more ideas, more formula, more choreograph, 

even that which smacks of meaning, seem now, 

no matter, removed. And me, distant, unengaged, 

off to the side watching, waiting 

for some beginning, for metaphor to fail 

in the face of real words, but utterly uncertain

who it is that’s supposed to speak, and, if it’s me, 

where to find the language and who to speak to—or, 

if me, is the move to listen more, 

to listen to the world of language speaks 

of worlds that speak to those who learn 

the language of listening 

to repeat in heart 

what’s heard

? 

       ?

**

We go where we go

by virtue of where our-going

goes—flow is everything

everywhere.

**

Outside the window, long stems 

ride spring winds, dance and delight 

in petals, deep pink.

Too undisciplined to learn their name, 

I idle and wonder, what sentences 

they’d say to name themselves.

**

Thin-skinned figures

line the rail of the deck,

bent arms, bent legs

and spring-necked heads 

tremble the breeze

with songs of tin.

**

The narrator, an intelligent, careful film, asks: 

once we’ve noticed the reservoir of momentum 

that is our deepest living, what do we do with the rest ?

Keep noticing.

**

Everything we can say of it, anything we say, 

none of this is it—saying—that

comes closest.

**

Solitude is understanding the self

within unlimited embracing life, where 

birth, joy, suffering and death continue to occur.