Pushed away enough times
and one might well step aside
before the next takes traction,
neither resisting nor not resisting,
printless tracks
abound.
**
Every occurrence, the fulsome minutia thereof,
rests in the cross-hatched hair’s-breadth moment
of eternity’s breaking face in time’s present place,
this alone enduring, this the flame fanned, the essence
of spirit, the heart of what poem is about.
**
After multiple nights hoarding the light,
moon begins to show its other side,
leaving more for the stars.
**
Strange to think it’s the invisible sap
that holds together the whole of a tree.
Or is it the sun and sky
doing that?
**
Thinking everything ought have use,
even our thinking, we squeeze ourselves
empty of joy.
**
The window in my room reflects the inside glow
of floor lamps, lets the soft report of the light aside
the neighbor’s door, just now turning down
as darkness turns us to the coming day.
How many the books and scattered papers
along the shelves here, unfinished, half-read,
marginalia scratched and skimmed, pages turned,
forgotten closed—all, or most all of this undertaken
with some thought of some wholeness
some how missing, while all the while, which days
of all those holding you were less than their fullness
including you, the all of you and the all you do—
a petal’s quiver is never partial, never alone.
**
Unable to decide the date for certain,
too lazy to count back the days, I stretch out
on the bed all day to watch everything around me
do nothing more than what it does of its own…
including me, I’ve begun to see, me, wondering why
I’m lying here feeling out of sorts, unconnected,
is in fact the what of what I do this day, and with this,
seeing that, the ease already fallen about it all,
catches this fool then settled right there in it all,
of it all—
“wandering come to rest, the world and I
let each other go. Not a sole in sight,”
says T’ao Ch’ien,
“….I send findings beyond all words:
who could understand this bond we share?”
**
1/10
High in the south grey sky turning blue,
moon signals its thinnest thread
to those looking up
and those who don’t,
no decision, no discussion,
just perennial doings
simply done.
Confused echos criss-cross a continent
merely a blur from up there.
**
1/12
Morning arrives dull, crimped, shade-drawn.
But a deeper silence hovers, heavy as a shroud,
that will not clear of itself.
Almost twenty years since the last, by others,
from the outside.
This time, ourselves, from inside—is this the time
we ask ourselves
who we are?
**
Moist nights
clear days
warm air—
earth
flowers.
**
Kneeling in the dirt in the garden,
pulling weeds, the inner light
of a knowing smile
welcomes me back—dusts
from troublesome travels
left at the open threshold.
It’s been so long now, nearly forgotten, the original name
I’d taken as Buddha’s-follower (well before a more serious
one) was Gunmo, Japanese for weeds, or sprouts, the kind
fermented for alcohol—one who’s drunk with an unruly and
persistent grip on this life, which may explain our relations
in the garden: they don’t seem to mind that I pull them; and
it bothers me not at all that I’ve got to do it over and again:
it’s not battle between us, but continuing conversation
about who we are, what we share, where we come from—
they’ve promised to watch over things when I’ve gone.
**
—plain wood
a walk in first light loosens body and mind
scattered breaths, untangled thoughts
silently littering neighborhood sidewalks
there are ways to say Buddha’s name
that please linguistic sensibilities
but the seed is in breath’s performing
and every word we meet and speak
in this way
is the way
**
It’s not raining. Mid-January, none in sight—the last rains
a week or so back, only the flowers remember, still tasting
morsels of moisture remained in the earth.
From the bowl on the altar, incense lifts too, tells
of the nearness of air not noticed without it.
**
1/14
As day breaks
in morning winds,
two barks
from next-door,
then nothing
but the biting chill
defining its claim
before sun makes its mark
on the final day
before powers exchanged—
cloudless skies holding
the stillness
of our collective breaths.
***
“….Trust yourself to the mountainside. It will take you in.”
—T’ao Ch’ien
