“There are only two dates—that of my birth
and that of my death. Between one and the other
all the days were mine.”
—Alberto Caeiro
Each meeting is new, I believe, no repeats.
Yet there seem so many times something else
at work—so I felt this morning, after weeks
of distress, an alignment, if you will, a subtle shift
into place familiar, carrying signals, promises
of a steadiness, if not new, not unfamiliar.
**
—Petrichor:
that’s the word for it, earth’s smell
after long-awaited rainfall, an earthy sweet
scent lifting from ankle-planted feet,
blossom-less, stemless promise, simply
breathed in.
This time of year here is dry. The last of the plums
hide in bunched leaves, apples fall ripe, and now,
at last, the pears.
The trees edge the pathways and stucco walls
that frame the vegetable gardens. Willa Cather’s
“Professor’s House” prompted building the walls.
Two seasons’ work, my father’s visage with us
the entire time—the storied scholar,
the grade-school educated laborer, and me,
the only one sweating.
We three, we did good.
**
The corn ears this year were a bit stunted
and harvested about a week too late.
The kernels didn’t squirt their juice, but
when bitten, did ask to be chewed.
**
The first light before the sun breaks
between the homes across the way
is neither grey nor shadowed,
but whispered, there, but not yet full,
and neighbors move in this light
as if through sheltered rooms
where loved-ones still sleep, move
with care and carefulness
simply not afforded later times
and later light of day.
**
Oh, the quiet light, again,
that light that lays in whispers
on the streets, in the trees, the leaves
so still, the air that claims all for its own
embracing our hearts in smile.
The teachers, the teachings, the leanings
most true to my living, never leave, linger
always so close, that any need to make claim
on my part is superfluous. The I that I am, if at all,
receiving, waking, responding.
**
Mornings, before the sun,
evenings, at sundown,
hummingbirds come
for fence-running
blossoms.
**
—8/15
Open windows, the door to the deck open
throughout night’s quiet—rippling starlight,
moon’s crescent, and Venus, high in the east,
above the sun’s huddled waiting.
**
—8/16
This morning’s earliest hours belong
indisputably to Heaven.
A rolling announcement
of softly offered glow,
sharper hints of spark,
followed by the full encore
of bolts and flash and boom,
traced through sudden bulging drops
of summer rains…
Amazing for us here in these parts.
And little did we know, the start
of the fires.
**
The grandchildren are doing a great job,
which I do appreciate; but sometimes
I miss my teachers.
**
Waking before dawn these August days
of Covid—this day, wandering the house
and out to the deck to check on the stars,
to see how they are—and some are there
for me to see, staring back in their shining,
in their dying.
And as I lay back on the bed, I think
our world too is dying, as am I, as are
we
and a lightness makes its way, makes
in me a way for the song of Buddha’s name,
uttered and uttering clouds of OK-ness,
of lightness—a way.
And I sleep.
**
The wife, I’ve said this before, observes
in me a stubborn streak, to which I retort
that I’m not stubborn until I am. That said,
there’s little doubt the wife knows of what
she speaks—and between you and me,
I don’t know the same can be said
of me.
**
Grey morning skies
speak of fires. The news
spoke of five last night, of more
this morning, another summer
of flames linking us to the wilds,
illusions of difference erased,
lessons signaled.
**
Smoke laces the canyons,
filling the valley from the west,
deepening up and down—no sky,
no sight, for a quarter mile.
The fires.
The summer.
The fires.
**
—Because…
The second real walk this week,
hip and leg mending, I breach the arch
of a dusty rise to see the sun giving its light
in the haze above the bay—
a red-tinged orange disc
glowing in oddly lowered tones,
murmurs of nearby fires.
These therapy walks bring me to break
old habits, to different views of town,
of remembrance of the presence
of the bay, just here over the hill
from where we live.
On the street side of our front fence,
on my return, bouquets
of purple passion flowers.
**
Two days ago I spent two hours
hanging a triangular sun canopy
from the arced trellis to the front fence,
finally getting it just right.
The smoke from the fires keeps us indoors,
but I’ve watched a hummingbird, multiple times,
come perch, at rest
on that single stretch of nylon chord,
before zipping off for blossoms.
That singular, personal sense of presence
within the world at hand, that at death
goes missing,
owes whatever it was to all the rest
that remains behind, that which gave rise
to that sense of presence, that gave that sense
something to sense,
like flowers, like hummingbirds,
like a stretch of chord.
**
—They say, Boulder is gone…
But make no mistake, we are and are of
the places we love, we are and are of the places
we have learned to love in, and have learned
to be loved in,
and loss, oh loss fractures, pains the whole,
but cannot lay claim to the whole,
only our generations can do that, can claim, can
reclaim what we’ve known there—the house, the home,
the refuge, the treasure of who we were there,
who we are because we were there—see,
there in the photo, aside the debris,
the circled redwoods, there in silent wait
of the fairies and the dreams, and of us
and the generations.
**
True living signals so often come
as outside calls,
a window open to utter stillness, a leaf,
not even that fluttered,
all still, yet still with voice, lifting eyes,
gifted silence.
My wish for you is this.
**
Ice to the nerves
of the stricken leg
soothes puzzles
of physical being,
a would-be poet
sipping again
at the stream.
***
this world—
the silver dewdrops
aren’t lying
—Issa
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