poems

for the poet then, morning prayers

in three tongues 

make good first breaths richer 

music heard 

and birds turn

in answer

**

For me, sips of bitter black 

at dawn, and scribbles

on wrinkled pages 

can turn entire days 

known in light-glow.

**

Morning shadows slowly reveal the slopes.

Sun-chased fog reveals the ridge 

that reveals the horizon that hides 

the Pacific 

that waits in distant quiet. 

**

Early light tries,

then wrinkles

grey.

**

Looking at the sky

instead of the rotted trunk,

woodpecker, quiet.

**

just above the ridge,

illumined halo-whispers

of ocean-lifted fog

**

Sometimes I tire

of tiring, of trying

to out-think aging.

Then, sometimes 

I just give in, let rest 

take the lead ‘round the circle.

**

The moon returns

with clear night skies 

showing less

than whole.

**

After a mile

or so, the new boots, the feet,

mark the places they meet,

while walking names them.

**

Here we are in March rain-drops, 

where spring reveals its dreams 

and winter just winters.

**

Cleaning up the house,

the bathroom, floors, some dusting—

a way of saying 

I’m still alive.

**

If we speak

the truth of

our living,

others see

their living

there too—we

see there then

each other

in ourselves.

Speak true.

Make peace.

**

After the night’s rains,

on the back-stairs cherry tree,

its first blossoms.

**

There are mornings when the mind 

begins to see

well after walking begins

what the eyes have been seeing 

all the while

—and we’d speak here often 

of waking or of sleeping, 

of what’s been missed

in the gaps, when really it’s nothing—

no thing is left out or behind, nor trails 

any other ever 

in living’s wholeness

with dying

—it’s the carrying flow

that counts for everything—

all seeking, all

ever sought,

right here—

when embraced, 

embrace back.

**

—Oh, those poetry quarterlies…

and the clubs there—oh I’ve learned, indeed,

and pondered and considered

but in the end, the language and its love

is no more the possession of presumed experts

than it is of mine, and for this, one and all,

we can celebrate, we can sing…one and all.

**

California golden violets

east-facing slopes

green-wet grasses

**

What of the silence

when really listened to—slowly

expanding embrace, soft newness,

allowance, permission, unrestricted, 

uncluttered whispers of…Yes.

**

On east facing slopes

poppies too bloom in spring grass,

no doubts, no questions, 

just poppies doing poppies.

Life—mine, yours, theirs, 

moves this way.

**

At the crest of the hill

the sky opens suddenly above

the bay, the distant city

spreading

and this singular life sees

so much more of itself..

*
**
***

“Nothing can be done

 but in inches. I write out my life

 hour by hour, word by word…”

                        Adrienne Rich

                             —“Incipience”

“I have no teacher to learn from

    and no students to teach.

There is nothing except…

   stars twinkling in the sky.”

                     Haya Akegarasu