—Owl Canyon
The water at the bottom of the creek
meets the marsh in creviced spreading voice
that differs from up-land,
speaks here to wild grass and petals,
to what’s only theirs to hear, allows us
but to listen and to look.
**
Bird on the line, squirrel
on the ground—cold breeze blowing.
These walks…how much longer…
**
Death doesn’t end,
she says,
until life does.
Lean in, then,
to living.
**
Quiet
mists drift
lips and
eyelids
float as
petals pass
freshness.
**
Unswervingly intentioned
intelligence and purpose
are soulmates.
**
Just…
coming
to wholly understand
the unity
of all that sings me
singing me…
Just that.
**
I try
not to argue
who I am.
**
Dappled light, the sun
through leaves, shadowed touch
of vines
outside the window
above the workbench, scattered tools
waiting their turn.
**
A slow walk,
morning chill,
chanting softly
for the all that’s given
just because, for the joy
in that, just because.
**
All last night the winds
demanded the roof,
but couldn’t get it.
This morning, without asking,
sunlight slips through the window
just to visit.
**
—Nancy Tilden
my first real teacher
often spoke of the light
I clearly remember there
in her eyes
after all these so many years
I still, like her, look for.
**
A silver sheen of blurred mists lifts
from the waters of the bay
to screen the sun’s sky
with moistened kisses.
**
—Listening to Tagore
The thrill of the risings of songs of thanks
filling the chest with musics of joyous smiles
too fine for words even so carefully offered.
**
Sunlight fell
both at the edge of the window
and on the thumb and fingered edging
of the journal resting on the knee,
then slipped elsewhere.
I’d forgotten the first time
alone chanting, I cried,
and too a time a presence so strong
my heart skipped for days
before it passed to past.
But I see now that what we do
without reason demanding
is life’s doing,
life selecting direction,
whether we see it that way or not,
till we catch up.
**
Winter weeds and grasses summer
to almost waist high, trails squeeze and flowers
burrow out from browned and drying stalks—winter
is green here; hills tan in summer—abundance
is the constant, and will share as much as we let it.
**
The last few pages of journals
I’ve lived in, thin to feint but definite calls
to the next
waiting patiently somewhere
for that firm-felt press
of first-laid words
heard in the final trickling
of earlier voicings.
**
A dance,
this dance,
dances—
finding
the dance
living
in you
revives
in you
your dance,
your age
dropping
away
in the breeze.
**
Honeysuckle petals,
golden yarrow, coyote mint,
quiet coasting jays.
If any name is sacred,
then all are to be sung so,
says the poet.
**
the zen teacher
who says flowers don’t talk
hasn’t spoken with bees either
**
I can tell every time
when I’ve stayed too long
with the scholars—my feet
forget how to skip…
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