First principles

—as heard

        from the Singer-Seers:

   slow down,

                 stand still,

   listen:  here

                 is always here,

   never lost,

                 always finds you—

   what does this tell you

                 to sing?

**

Recent rains and sunshine

tempt new green leaves

the ground opens 

for hummingbird sage

**

Owl Canyon slow-rolls below a steep ridge to the east

that holds a stream and willows that watch over 

the meadow that floods in winter—the trail middles

a somewhat muted ridge, recognizable further up, 

where it drops to the west, where a smaller stream 

feeds a healthy Bay whose leaves release their scent

for even the briefest lingering glance.

Thelma and Besh used to live among the limbs 

just before the climb, in hill-touching oaks there,

where I stop to remember, to rest and to drink, 

and to watch the winds play.

Wherever attention takes you, a way to plan,

when you think you need—a practice even… 

but really, just living

    

   

    red-tail hawks, soundless 

       to all below

    

       —feathered secrets 

             sung to the wind.

**

Gulls don’t seem to care

he can’t walk to the sand’s edge.

Breeze blows just the same.

A couple secures their bikes

to a rack, drive off.

The old man in the back seat

watches, scribbles more,

scratches one page into the next,  

searching for a break in the pain.

**

From spine to right hip,

nervous nerves announce pain-strength—

waiting for zero.

**

Light shares with shadows

what can’t be said out loud.

**

Desk top reflections

welcome the light that washes

them clean—books akimbo.

**

Though pain can swallow us,

anger take our bones, our willingness

to hear, the teachers we can trust tell us

the world around us always knows.

**

The entire west side of our home

runs open to outside by windows

and glass doors and horizon-broken sky

that pours in, even flashing bird wings 

time to time,

runs like a line in a poem Whitman might make,

as if he and I were of-a-kind like that—

and I don’t know, but wonder.

Fully American, North American, like him,

to be sure, but how else like him, I can’t say,

though I’m feeling it’s more, fundamental,

you know.

So maybe, just maybe there is something 

that light-letting line has to tell me of myself, 

and of him, 

of us, maybe, 

or is whispering to the glistening trees, 

to the weeds glistening between the rocks,

growing so freely in the garden below,

maybe.

**

Birds, before twilight,

gather the tall poles,

watch hummingbirds 

work the flowered fence,

quiet streets still

in the false promise 

of light.

**

A walk to the corner, halting

here and there, like that black squirrel

crossing the street, tentative explorations

with and eye to caution.

My focus, the nerves in my hip. The squirrel,

I suspect, watching me, watching for cars,

is readying for winter’s coming.

Which one of us would you suppose

is better prepared for whatever it is

to come next ?

**

When people ask what I do 

with my time, I make small talk 

about gardening, working 

around the house—don’t mention

poetry, because most ask,

then, if and where I’ve published.

At that point, no point talking—

sweeping and shaping the mind

to conform with the heart 

are solitary pursuits.

     —as old Chia Tao says:

           The solitary bird 

           loves the wood;

              

           your heart also

           not of this world.

**

For the falling moon,

dark holds steady, offers stars

to the coming dawn.

**

Leaves let winds muse limbs,

let colors loose for earth’s flags,

borderless, boundless.

**

I’d recently thought

pulse-beats akin to sounding

coordinates—place

affirming a presence, there.

But listening 

lifts multiple resonances,

myriad here-nows

beating coincidentally—

not singular patters, a hum,

a thrumming, vibrant fielding

of connected voice

run through with electric joy

eddying about

constantly shifting 

tide-surge,

lulls laying low, lean

with the barest vibrations

of scents of light,

the lilt of shifting shadows, and

the unmistakeable, inescapable textures

of the knowing nearness 

of intimate companions—

the place 

of places dwelled in 

with others.

**

—illumined flannel nightgowns, 

shared smiles with the women,

the two who call me son—

unusually rich dream-life of late,

poems, insights too,

carry into deepened days

what some might call visions

—disturbed and brittled sleep

to be sure,

but some might say wakings