Wonderings...

—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.