—parenting
it was impossible to disagree
so we did not
and the regret was his,
in his maturity,
a lesson, rather than
resentment
**
quietness puddles,
barely ripples
the pen’s shadowy tracing
of soundless words
at work on the page
taking everything
as given
**
As a young man once
I worked for a land surveyor,
something I might have done long
had the world and time allowed—
surveying pins in the street remind me,
sight-able nails marking where
surrounding worlds
will be surveyed from,
center points
for looking out
and around,
like self, like heart-mind,
like the pole-star…
**
Ginsberg’s poetics
have delighted and confused
and intrigued me
for years and still do,
breath-held vibrations of voiced
revelations of awe-held calm
scratching page and air alike—
a living pursuit,
fully breathed.
**
—October heat-wave…
not certain I’d ever grow accustomed
to windows open in pre-dawn dark
that channel no chill
but do enjoy the now quiet strangeness
settled about the room lighted
with a single lamp
the helter-skelter spread of books
and papers, scrolls and photos,
and Buddha statues
—this so loved space, lived in—
and I wonder, in time, what others
will see
**
The how to
of it,
how to live
fully,
I’d say now,
has been
the focus
question
and pursuit
for me—
all these years,
just that.
**
Why I live is why I write
and what makes me sing
the musics of our everyday breathings,
all the gladnesses, all the sighs.
**
—and this, from poet Robert Lax:
“ it is not that our lives
should so radically change,
but rather our understanding…”
**
The moon quarters
aside the morning star
high in eastern skies,
damp streets, trees and me
shadow passing night, canyons
curl advancing fogs, and
all along in this,
the almost imperceptible hum
that sings of all of us.
**
And over and again,
the turn and stretch
of the search
for that which shines
with its own evidence.
**
and when suddenly
the question jumps out,
the answer reveals its place
in the puzzle disappearing
on the asking breath
**
—poetry
this quiet
this way wakes
inside of,
seeded there,
there seeding,
pulsing forth
toward light-
opening
breath-soundings
purposing
praise
**
in the natural run of things,
when meeting the shore,
tensioned energies release,
waves return
**
Orion, it’s been so long !
Where have I been
morning skies?
**
If you’re curious, if you want to know
if it’s possible for us to simply experience,
observe, without commentary,
methinks it best not to ask the poet,
who wonders why one would wonder
that.
**
Touch any pulse
to understand consistency
need not signal redundancy.
**
Hummingbirds in the front
display an affinity for the shade
that falls near the end of sun’s fall
behind the western ridge line,
always arriving on time, their kind
of time, the kind that clocks don’t tell,
that birds and petals and wooden fence edges
seem to just feel, and openly share
with those who don’t.
