September

What more can be said of morning light before sun

arrives, than the quiet leaves hold. 

For anyone in need, definitive presence extended 

in leaf-speak: concrete, undeniable there-ness 

that calls of refuge—because its call is its leafness, 

we too can bring who we are; because 

it demands only itself, we too are blameless; 

because it waits in rest, we too.

**

Just finished cleaning the house, 

which I do when the wife is out,

sitting with coffee to wait her return,

reading poems, writing one or two,

wondering what I’d accomplished,

hoping nothing—dust’s return is one

of the countable comforts in this life, 

reliable—I’ve no quarrel with it,

nor with the wife.

**

One of the more important lessons learned

this backpack season, for old guys,

is that the mountain always sets just the right pace

for the bodies in question, tells you right away 

when you’re getting it wrong.

**

At Kittredge and Shattuck, at the Starbuck’s there,

a single table opens in the front window 

just as I pour the cream, looking out to the tree

remembered from years past, still there at the curb, 

bigger now, but still bent, still looking bedraggled,

like so much else here in Berkeley, older, but

the same, you know, reassuring.

**

Sounds outside

Ignition to engine, mostly a sure sound 

these days, was not so not so long ago, when

the stretch from call to response was a chasm

of guarded expectation and stuttered promise.

Before turning the key, you’d steady yourself,

on cold mornings, hold your breath.

Back then, when met with silence, people 

seemed to know what to do.

**

       “life wanting to live in the midst of

             other life wanting to live”

                                 -Albert Schweitzer-

and so, when we lean forward then, when

others pause and turn…

**

Figs—from the tree

in the back yard,

twisted, plucked and

dripping milk…have you?

**

Folks I know correct their words

as they go along, so others

can come along too.

Separate the process from where

people breathe, and someone

is always left behind.

**

Gladness 

ripples warmth

like the meeting eyes

of friends come together

from the distant past,

cuts of the same cloth,

different falls of the light

of the same sun.

Chung Tsu, David Hinton,

Zuiken, to name a few, like Saichi,

Sakaki, like Stafford, like me.

**

I’ve lost track of whatever point

I thought it was I’d wanted to make

and instead find myself focused more

on following the point life seems to be

making with me, you know, like the one

moving in and out at the end of my nose.

**

Low clouds, or is it fog, sweeps pink

across deep green crevices of canyon work

that look out to the east, when not looking up.

Translator of ancient eastern thinkers,

David Hinton writes 

that our resistance to anthropomorphism

here in the west, is based in the mistaken belief 

that human consciousness is separate, apart from 

rather than a part of the “tissue” of existence.

That we ascribe personal attributes to the world 

as we live it, is more about intimacy 

than correctness.

**

The moon is out there somewhere,

nearing full in a mostly empty sky.

It will visit our window later, linger, 

then leave, telling its whole story 

without uttering a single word. 

                                                        9/15

**

While breathing the other night, I imagined

a figure kneeling before the open altar of life

spread like a book of ancient poems

that no one people could claim. 

No one language enough, every gesture 

tentative, those passing through sensed 

the pause 

and simply listened.

                                                     9/20