Saying yes

 

simple acts,

layered links

unfolding…

**

waking 

under the arms

of the oak, watching

leaves take back their green

**

The man, once a soldier,

speaks of peace, of unused muscles

of humanity

seemed atrophied—nations

are nations, maybe lost there, 

but people

can come back

to being 

just that.

**

Can never seem to remember the names

of the flowers outside my window,

never told them mine either—

we just nod and smile anyway.

**

That young poet nailed it, nailed

me-my experience when her age,

when they tried and failed to take

that which found itself for me

all these years to follow—she said, 

the only worthy revenge,  

after all that’s tried against it, 

is to love, again and again.

**

The thistle at the edge

of the path, a broken roadway

over grown, a clear spot

of bright petals, sharpened greens

not to be touched.

**

all these years

waiting to figure out

that beyond all figuring,

I raise my empty hands

only to see that too

one of the moves

of the dance 

that opens the heart 

to the songs

I hear myself singing…

**

Pushing the dead mouse to the side

of the trail, I cover it with bay leaves

and at the ridge between the canyons

chant into drifting fogs.

**

not the walk

I might have 

walked but this

walking now

brings breezes

breaking brisk

cloud-strewn sky

bluing grey

puffs away

above eyes

lifted high—

not the walk

I might have walked,

but this walking

**

She called it, or was it he

who spoke of “light logic,” taught

of course by shadow—I mean, the pen,

watch it approach the page.

**

Wondering how to live past eighty,

the crows gathered down the street

shrug a disinterest that says,

“you’ve got to get there first, stupid.” 

**

What if question

is freedom’s deepest dance,

spread-armed openness

where release is our own grip

letting go, where not knowing

is home.

**

Poets ask,

stories tell.

Stories tell themselves

to those who listen.

What do you hear??

**

Summer browns

almost all

but mustard’s

yellow blotched

petals grouped

in tangles

of green stems

in dried grass

answering

the sun’s call.

**

—Purisima forests…

No other way

humans can take to this 

needle-softened earth

than its way—shaded slopes,

flashing sky and long-held silence 

showing us how.

**

Pescadero, a long sigh 

of enduring earth story.

**

In that movie years ago

the handsome outlaw wearing a hat

tells his sweetheart 

he’ll return

in spring,

and I’ve always wondered 

what living by seasons 

might mean, and now see 

old age as more than a few slow days, 

and youth indeed a tide

of very different 

waves. 

**