poems 2019
"The fundamental world of poetry is an inward world.
We approach it through solitude.”
—Robert Bly
Idle song
warm glow embers
burst flames
shadows flicker clear
a place safe
**
Family arrives
just as light leaves.
They bring their own.
**
It rained while we slept.
Puddled streets
and drip-quivering leaves
remember.
**
Morning coffee draws
lingering thoughts to the light
pulling pen.
**
Here,
the evidence:
a life.
**
Late in my teens
and early twenties,
my pose was “wild.”
This was before selfies.
**
Growing toe and finger nails
indicate nothing certain. So I’m happy
to report my feet continue to grow,
flatter—but that’s not the point.
**
Who’s to know,
I sure don’t, if these lines
are poems or not.
They just keep coming.
**
This time of year the sun drops
behind surrounding hills well before four
and inside dims to fog-like grey.
Day is, but isn’t.
Having forgotten more than ever known
of chosen ism’s, I take care now to watch
for what’s caught.
Only the fixed remains mistake.
**
The world is as we see it
and as it otherwise tells us.
**
Heart and mind—better still, heart the mind.
That felt fabric denies all effort to deny
the warmth to be found here.
Undeniable presence, the almost touch,
the shape and curve of words
that come about of this.
**
Obsessing for awhile over the density
of poems proffered, returning the volume
to the shelf, letting residuals find their own
line to the page.
**
Refusing the sweep
of wind-blown branches,
morning shadows wait
for the sun.
**
Two days of steady rains stop
with daybreak, leave me
listening.
**
The slivered moon, the planet
nearby, shine alone,
sky adding nothing.
**
Buddha’s name, this morning
lent to yellow blossoms
on the altar.
**
**
Ocean-Mountain Zazen
*
we count
to return
to one
*
breath-splashed bowl
*
and the sky and the rocks
and the lichen glowing there
in rain-moistened air
speak those softened tones
winds reserve for friends
**
**
Sprinkles on my skin
where the hood doesn’t cover.
At the end of my walk, day’s edge
seamless breaks:
sky never lies.
**
The answer
The wife catches signals too slight
to be caught in words, then says them
as though so obvious it’s clear
they’re extra.
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