—April poems
And one day the world comes in from somewhere, saying
something or other about this or that, and, well, a draft pulls
instead of pushes, and even though you trip on your own
resistance, you’re out there—everything’s changed, no going
back.
And then later, a long later, maybe, you realize how little
you’ve done on your own, remember how steady the pull
has been all this while, and how the light has lingered, even
if scattered sparks, lingered throughout the arching reach,
the presumed maturity,
and you feel (you know by its pull), you feel the world wanting
again, and this time you know
to lift your feet.
**
Never just this or that,
always everything.
**
The moon, just passing full, takes the quiet sky
to the west. No struggle, no other—neither us, nor them.
Sky’s lead is empty, empty enough for whatever fullness
might dare to dream.
**
Mist and rain…
Walking later than usual this morning,
as garbage trucks make their noisy runs,
parents their illegal turns to drop the kids,
as new growth shows past dull green old.
Unable to figure the so what, or ah so,
somehow warm with it all, this morning,
later than usual.
**
The open eyes of morning call fatigue
into filtered grey light
like freshly washed underwear, clipped
under loosely stretched line,
white flapping winds and two wooden pins
determined to stay put,
till everything is ready to get on
with it.
**
How many morning walks more,
old man—furtive moments
of unlimited exuberance
signal pure illusion now, we know—
but take their extended hands anyway,
I say, welcome each next on its own
**
The parent part never leaves,
so they say, and so it seems as
true as true can be, as they say
it to be, and I’d say I’d not have it
any other way, not even for a day.
**
Finding you’ve finally arrived
and it’s where you started
may be classic, but nonetheless
happens—to wit: duh..
thud, foot hits earth, breath
passes nose, both ways,
forever leaving-always returning,
always here but going everywhere,
final exit, a return,
leaving body its return—
Buddha is said to have touched the earth
and said “I”
If he was thirty-five,
what’s taking you so long?
**
I mean, flowers attend
sun’s doings, which feeds
bee’s needs, which feeds
flowers doing attending.
**
Grey overcast dominates,
offering only silent shadow,
asking nothing, making no demand
that anything give
more than it would
to fullest light,
yet each does—
working harder
for more light,
most all of us,
is who we are.
**
The hills in the light just after the sun drops
show of winter, shades of green that reverberate
so intense one might think golds and browns
would never return, might think it so true as to point
with certainty at the way of it, and think
this the mark and fitting end of the song,
only to wonder, perhaps, perchance,
at some distant, almost imperceptible humming
still heard.
**
Primary things
like earth, like breath,
rhythm, motion,
stretch and retract,
sound made, sound heard,
seeing, being seen,
awareness,
presence,
this.
**
Clouds completely gone,
crisp and blue and empty sky
carries the train’s voice,
somehow always a surprise—
peripheries of purpose.
**
For India
The cheap pen
from the expensive college
slides the page no more smooth
than the cheap pen from the school
and office supplies department
at the pharmacy,
although the former does admittedly
exude certain gravitas and pride
for the grandparent here now
pushing it along.
**
The telephone poles
in town are still made of wood.
The woodpeckers know.
**
Easter Morning
And where,
actually,
when gone,
does wind
go ?
