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.
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