—Lisboa’s “Fado”
Portuguese coffee, black, strong, no cream,
mornings’ mist-slick streets
open to all who come
with heart-song.
**
Third morning in,
the first that sun intrudes—
parted curtains,
jet-lagged senses—
time to get up,
ready or not.
**
—Porto
the river holds darkness longer
than the birds
are willing
to wait
**
there on the slopes
below the castle walls,
lavender and white
iris
**
—the Duoro
days and nights go by
the way travel plays
at time—poems
coming and going, written
or not—ducks skim,
gulls glide,
birds twitter and chirp
at brush-rich edges—the river
saying whatever rivers say
**
Crossing the Rio Tijo,
just off geographical center,
south through the plains—olive
and cork, rock and scrub.
To call this the heart of Portugal
works until it doesn’t—I see it beat
in the people here too.
**
In my own footsteps
I find answers
that carry no words
ears can hear,
settled breath can round off,
sentences can say.
**
Edges
signal space.
Each leaf, the sky.
**
Having nothing, really
nothing else, I choose now.
It always takes me in.
**
Reaching through the dark,
moon lays light on blinds
and half-open eyes.
**
Testing
day four—waking
feeling better
does not produce
a negative.
**
Morning
waking
drips rain.
**
having lost count,
days simply turn
ordinary
revelations,
thinly shadowed
recognitions,
constellations
shaping just right
enough to let
presence unveil
simple wonders—
rain-sheen streets
tell of home.
**
Tired of sickness,
not tired of the rest
it brings.
Baking chicken,
the sleeping wife,
the ice clinks.
Never do shots,
but do mescal and juice
to this new life:
Covid—all these years,
we finally really meet.
**
a ruffled crow
watches the moon
and the other
way around—blue
sky morning—one
clawed toe gripping
**
5 x 11
page tacked to the pole,
a stick-figure dog
with her name under—
looks happy
**
on the phone line,
a hummingbird—
listening
**
because each thing is
an expressing of
the whole expressing
everything keeps count
because every thing accounts
for the whole
**
Today I liberated the rock garden
against the stucco wall—winter’s cover pulled,
edges and crevices gleaming—and was surprised
somehow at the myriads of little creatures
scurrying for cover, yet deeply satisfied
with the process: the wave of a hand,
a fisted grip, and gone, worlds
torn asunder—I’m told
that during the “great” wars,
people turned to home gardens
for solace—or was it forgiveness…
**
I can’t explain
nembutsu life
anymore than poems
buzzing the ears,
running the tongue,
sudden
lingering flashes
like hummingbird workings,
undeniably unpredictably here
when…here
like sky holding everything,
even what can’t be seen,
always…
then, we do
see…
and say
**
we can’t “correct” nature,
just adjust as it does
**
short morning walk,
another, longer, linked
pre-sun light bringing
blue breathing skies
**
deep purple petals,
white edges, shadowed folds
of green along the fence—lilac
**
—returnings
sound before sight—
heart beat, voice and flesh
first
light not sight—word, warmth,
refuge, trust
togetherness
“why do adults just sit and talk,“
my young son once asked…
