San Bruno Mountain

Putting myself in various spots 

  and observing the mind that happens there—

    I want to meet myself.

                         —Haya Akegarasu’s, Wind of Early Summer—

Two poems from San Bruno Mountain

*

Today in the saddle, a hawk, I think it was

a hawk, took me off-trail, aside the brush,

back and forth above the gorse, 

crossing so low, quiet opened 

across its back a patch so white

became my sole delight.

It took me today, that hawk,

took all of me with it, as surely 

as it took its name.

                                     1-11-17

*

For a man of my age, whatever that means,

if anything of consequence at all—for a man 

my age, slopes and distant ridges cease 

to be events of contest, become collaboration.

The mountain sets the pace, sets the sights, 

as well as lays the music for the song 

that comes there through us—our role, 

to wake enough to take it in enough 

to see the gift for what it is, and be glad 

that we did: that song.

                                                                       1-13

**

Hearing Buddha’s Names

I've done the philosophy, studied doctrine, 

chewed soothing words for rightness, onliness, 

only to find, for me at least, 

that every heart-felt vowel, cupped

and cut by any consonant, can well be held

as primal, as pregnant, with meaning 

and fulness resounding simply in saying. 

**

Days and dates come and go like snow 

that thinks of spring as “not yet,”

and is wrong.

                          12-24-16

**

By its very nature, question 

slows us down enough to open room

enough to listen rather than speak,

to learn rather than critique, 

and to share in the joy and release

of certainty displaced 

by surprise.

                                     1-1-17

**

Begin by peeling away layers accrued 

through no one’s fault, then probe the obvious 

for its footing.

                                               1-2

**

Standing as we do in clearing

morning skies, lingering shadows 

of night’s passing, the tree and me 

exchange glances 

in puddles still holding 

to the street—somewhere, some one

might well have a name for this.

**

Grace abides in the ordinary, in the daily 

release of daily anguish, perennially.

This unrest of this day, turns the breeze 

and the rush of the next breath of liberation.

                                                                      1-3

**

Rising in the dark in the rain in the streets,

the rustle and rush of shadowy presence,

sound without voice, the voice of sound

unrestrained by singularity—sky’s chant,

full to brim and over 

            with heaven’s nectar. 

                                                1-4

**

Unthinking, unblinking, water rushes 

any available channel—in humans,

this is thinking—think about it—think

too, if thinking were the whole of it 

for us, how sad we’d be—how fortunate

we are.

                    1-5

**

Some years ago, after several days 

along high country river banks, alone

with a favored field guide, I learned

of the willow well enough 

to know the family each time we meet

or pass close by—the turn and shape 

of leaves, the way it shapes the place

it’s in, its silhouette—

the kind of knowing

that stretches that word beyond itself

to what some call love.

                                     1-6

**

For this final leg then, opting to put this pen

to work for that peace that comes of connection,

I’ll choose that “enormous journey of everything 

around us.”

                               —after Andrew Schelling

**

Wind-blown clouds of rain pass by

our bedroom windows, dancing songs

of winter’s promise wrapped in cold.

Wondrous—the folded legs, enfolding

quilts, body-fired memories—these,

the comfort blessings of this having,

simply, home.

                               1-8

**

Inspiration comes as it comes, 

in whatever way…

the light in the ceiling in the room behind me 

shines back at me through the lowered curtains

of the window in front of me, beyond which 

stars are veiled by rain’s clouds, which in turn 

are veiled by morning darkness, out of which 

a dog which cannot be seen, barks 

but once, 

while all the while the rains, 

and the stars I suppose, remain and continue 

unrestrained reports of the perennial.

                                                                   1-9

**

The poem

is that part

of the report

that eludes

linguistic capture,

yet still appears 

to reside there, 

more than having 

just passed through.

                                            1-23