human inquisitiveness, the primal
mover—all else follows
**
a cacophony,
a feather-strewn trail
under silent sky
**
The movie author spoke
of word-carried consciousness:
mine, now yours—you to me—a miracle,
like bird-song, earth-touched feet.
**
—Nanao Sakaki—a part of Issa’s lineage?
He thinks so, “not only though,”
many others, “…like Lao-tzu in China. Many beings
come to me, from me, many rivers going down,
running down—sure…kind of a river.”
from “Inch by Inch,
45 Haiku by Issa”
**
San Clemente morning two: the Pacific
gently pummels California—winter so soft,
Christmas seems but a dream.
**
Carefully applying the salve—
the rash—her skin.
**
She reads aloud the story
unfolds.
**
Walking below the cliffs, the surf
following behind.
**
Outside the resort Coyote waits—
as usual, won’t say why.
**
the surf, the sand, the wind—
the gulls at sunrise
**
connection seeped in
spells peace
**
in the brush in the canyon, first Rabbit,
then Coyote—neither wanting to talk
**
Los Angeles to San Francisco,
we choose the slower one-
oh-one unfolding—mountains,
coast, open prairie, open sky
and too-long lain dormant
love-songs.
**
street-lights light
morning-wet streets—
my shadow rushes by
**
The teacher said
the poet says
poets say
everyday words touch
the bounty hiding
everywhere.
For Helen Keller, hearing WATER
transformed the world
forever.
We don’t have to go far to find—
the world we are presents:
**
—for David
He asked of the life
of nembutsu, of zen,
and words I’d thought long since gone
flow a river of care, of praise, of thanks—
and the moon-lit reservoir ripples.
**
Do you remember
rain on your face,
how clean the skin
in misted wet,
in whiff of wind,
the taste of drips
run to the lips
licked smooth
of salted sweat—do you,
remember rain,
on your face?
**
—12/30/22
Waiting till last, yellow leaf willows
still just thinning.
**
As for composition,
he said, leave it
unfinished, because
everything always is:
**
—1/2/23
one-two, two-three—
first month, second day
in the twenty-third year
of the current millennium—all
arbitrary brackets, parentheticals
along a fictive curve
of sparks and currents
endlessly named
by kindred currents and sparks
we currently call human
wonder, song or praise:
one-two, two-three
yes
**
rain-soaked Buddha doesn’t smile,
doesn’t frown—drip-listening
**
night’s restless rain drops,
waiting for the storm
**
“All lines don’t need to meet,”
she said, “colors blend,“ and scuff.
Life calls for attention,
not correction.
**
—writing by candle light
we speak, we say, we hear
sound, voice—words come to us
of their own, and are felt: by taking in,
we are taken in—
whereas fingers write by sight,
words offered,
there for taking or not—writer-reader,
same-same—
Buddha’s words, Buddha’s names
uttered then, may be denied efficacy
but not entry—the working undertaken
continuing of its own
**
electricity down, the solar trellis lights
shine outside even more beautifully
**
—un-worked wood—tzu-jan, ji-nen
for years, sitting in the arms
of the browned leather chair
my first-born designed,
watching for seminal currents
to resurface,
thus so…
**
after the storm,
through bamboo curtain,
moon
**
and at daybreak, Heron—its wings,
its neck,
to nest in the top of the tree
**
Front-yard Buddha waits
in morning dark
—bent-wet flowers, sodden leaves,
under the wintered almond tree
—bare-faced presence
saying it all.
