Sunday, September 1, 2024

And still it hasn't collapsed....

 


Original teachers long gone,

I turn mostly now to the children,

the grandchildren, hold hands

with the wife, turn pages

with old poets in quiet times.



**



The mornings I want to sit,

even without asking the chair 

is always there.



**



Been having conversations with

the way it is


for nearly eighty-one years—I offer

mostly words,


but we both have our say,

for now—I’ve learned


listening happens

even when we think sleep—


best, worse, long, short—words

do run on and run out


for us—but listening, I’ve learned

listening is always happening,


even when we think sleep.



**



Things don’t leave

the world at large


takes everything 

in all stages of happenings.


We think

we put things away


in a drawer, in a grave,

a fading memory; but


things don’t leave

the work of the universe


continues on

even when 


forgotten.



**



Legs, wind—pen,

pencil—a brush, perhaps

a breath—a pull and scratch:


real things produce sutras.



**



Black spoon,

blue cup,


morning 


Folgers.



**



Sometimes living surfaces

at 4:30 a.m.—I stroke its hand

but don’t get up with it.



**



Buckeye leaves now gone,

the canyon opens

its mouth.



**



A car passes

as I pass


a passing 

hummingbird.



**



the white chair streaks 


its sun-lighted image 


crossing bare wooden floors



**



Is then the haiku

spirit close to the ode,

only less clothing?



**



Coyote

bounces across the street

disguised as grass.



**



I can’t pretend 

to understand 

how it works 


is wondrous !



**



To waken to moon’s light

in house quiet

held there.



**



Just the other side

the screen, bamboo leaves signal

multiples of green.



**



Light I can’t see

helps me see 

shadow.



**



Writing


self-sufficient lines hold together


the silence in between.



**



A coyote, a second,

pad up the street’s center line,

then veer off to nowhere


to be seen

later in local news

worthy commentary.



**



How to speak

of this morning’s moon so high

in blue sky so full,


so light-contained, so there-with

us all, without need, without doubt.



**



I’ve learned once forgotten philosophies 

might actually be helpful—without a breeze

flowers bow to visiting bees.



**



There will be a citizen’s meeting

addressing “urban coyotes”—but we live


in the “sub-burbs”—sounds a lot like

Coyote to me…



**



Pulling out the old


papers reignite reasons


they were saved.



**



After

some scheduled blood tests

speak ill of my kidneys,

I figure I need to get to know them,

perhaps over a glass or two

of water.



**



But I’ve not yet mentioned

the apples from the tree

closest to the house,

there with the plums 

and the pears—they’re here,

even this early in season 

already eaten and enjoyed.



**



Though an hour early, the sun

finds a bed of fog along the ridge

to rest and quiet its rays.



**



Each jay

does its own thing—

doves like company.



**



He waves as told

to the camera on the cell-phone,

left-handed, in the right 

a tilted cup below 

that tilted half-smile

that tells he’s there 

somewhere still 

that same guy.



**



Thoreau is said to have said

to catch any wave passing our way

this now is fine—and although 

he did not speak to those waves

that do the catching of us, 

he knew them too.


The field of work awaits where we wake,

engaging encounters of nothing less than 

everything, pointed confluences

of the whole 

one, 


no one thing ever alone,

no thing ever completed 

done.


Wetted deck,

receding fogs

promising blue—


the bee, the me,

the paper and pen,

rustle and buzz:


the throws of the work

of this day’s ever-unfolding  Yes …



**



My mind at times seems

so full anymore just rolls off—


stretched toes, lifted heels.