7,000 steps
brings good health—1 breath poems
set you free
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having learned the earth
was here for him, Stafford
followed words wherever…
**
words disappear
as spoken—
stop worrying
**
two black birds circle
the jutting deck
I splatter the page—
pressing pen, gripping lines,
the real gist winging away
**
having secretly planned
long walks in the hills, inch by inch
the body says no
**
cranes call out
to darkening skies
their coming home
**
the waters, the birds,
the drowning sun
gatherings at dusk
**
we wait, they fly
edges, wetlands, dimming light—
craned necks, one sky
**
a suite of crane-calls—
memories stretched and fluttered
into syllables
**
water’s answer
to the calls,
the splash
**
morning:
dark stretches
into reaching light
**
—for Johnny…
we sat that evening
in your great sadness
not knowing we’d never
sit that way again
over these sixty years’
distance, moments
of buried intimacies
revealed in running tears
as real now as then—we were
friends, we were…and
neither distance nor silence
can change that
**
morning fog, high clouds
no shadow, no warmth
**
the student spirit
bubbles to almost bursting
each breath the one breath
pushing whatever’s next
**
writing tanka
in counted English sometimes
works—sometimes penned poems
sequence secrets
in empty space
**
same things not the same
day to day—difference is true
the window’s bamboo
**
through the window, dawn’s light
sets the desk a'glow
**
passing light
whispers of dust
on the shelves
**
because counting
listens, each count
cultivates…
the way
**
as for the poem,
if counting’s heard in the song
the poet’s failed it
**
the body
carries memories
the mind forgets—
letters to widows
never get it right
**
the deep red rose,
the altar vase
from here,
no smell
**
one way or other
the bamboo outside the window
always speaks of breeze
**
waving tree-tops weave
what we can’t see, what limbs, leaves
and open skies tell
**
from the valley floor,
garbage trucks—
silent slopes
**
we lean in to point
to contention—jays swoop in
to empty branches
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