Sitting on rocks--

When they asked for a blessing, 

the slightest pause gave away

he wasn’t often asked this;

but he said rather easily 

to remember you don’t have to 

be Buddhist to be a Buddha,

and bid us safe travels.

**

—Hidden Lake, Desolation Wilderness

So tired, all we can do at 7,000’

is crawl into the bags,

writing, well before dark, to stay awake

for the first of the stars, 

to answer the cry of the sky

to silhouette pines

that circle the last of its light

on the face of the lake.

**

—At 8,400 ft

Tangled up at the edge of the lake, 

watching the winds ripple the water, 

and the leaves, pass though needles, 

over my skin, speaking in words 

welled up in me that I mistake 

for mine alone.

**

—Lower Selma Lake

The first stars arrive before dark,

high above the horizon in the south-west.

My young companion sits on granite 

and waits for what more may come.

I head for my tent, no longer embarrassed 

at the lack of resolve, hoping just to see 

the sky fully alight before my eyes 

have to close,

thinking too, that to be here at all 

marks a deeper intention

still alive and well, even at seventy-five.

**

In the high mountains,

deep breaths draw

the scent of green.

**

Swirls in the trunk

of the rotted tree, turn a knot 

into story.

**

Monday morning light

slips in slowly, waits just outside

still slumbering eyes.

**

Rain spittles

through the tent netting,

makes me get up to pee.

**

Grand daughter,

at the edge of womanhood,

stops by, we talk, she goes.

**

I’ve heard

from an entirely unreliable source

that the old man is the keeper

of secret archives

in the State of Everywhere,

so close by here we walk through

and barely notice—when you ask,

the direction shows itself—no one

accompanies because everyone

is already here—nothing pressing,

no where else to be.

**

“The most precious thing

in life is its uncertainty.”

                   Kenko, Essays in Idleness

Having nothing better to do,

I indulge the smooth slipping pen

and the scratch of its faulty grip

on the empty page filling,

its definitive swirls, the wake

of the words they’d hoped to be—

like so many streaks on a window,

found out in the light of the sun.

**

The rose in the small vase

on the altar falls limp but holds

its petals, mounded incense ash

too, silent and steady grey center

of the waiting wooden bowel, 

itself an act of reception, holding 

its place and its part, signaling 

reserves of praise and trust.

**

—after Lu Chi

That old Chinese poet

says thought

follows word, so

which voice

brought word first

for you 

to follow with your voice

which at first was

like bird-call,

then words

calling you and you

following there—after

word, thought, then you.

**

—Together in this…

The voice on the car radio

spoke of borderless citizenship—

fire smoke following all the way out

from mountains to bay and ocean,

sun setting deep orange ringed red 

with haze.

In the garden, a hummingbird sits 

along side, watching, five minutes 

or more, neither of us knowing 

what more to do, neither wanting 

to leave.

**

—Introductory Note…

Mine is the way of pen to page—self 

sustained therein by that support before 

the mind behind the frame of push and pen, 

words returning of themselves in praise 

of the world from which they came, pulling 

stroke to stroke into being, living unfolding 

inconceivably scented sacred, every thing 

and each one many in themselves, all 

speaking by way of the spoken.