Bunch Grasses

Bunch Grasses

Scattered poems and recollections

of La Paz, Mexico, 2009

The inscription reads:

And if you want peace,

I offer it to you

in the sunny peace of my bay.

night’s clouds break,

spilling swells of light

toward the shore.

**

Evening’s pink

silhouettes

a solitary palm.

**

Sitting

alone at the desk,

waiting for the dark side of the moon

to shift and rise too,

out from itself.

**

Asked his way,

the poet replies: I’ve nothing to offer

but what’s next,

and I’m not yet there.

**

From Oppen’s prose and daybooks,

a poetics of no-poetics:

This will not summarize.

This will guide

without demand.

**

Sunday, along the darkened Malaccan, along the water,

well-mannered walkers whisper early morning greetings;

but for the slow turn of the earth,

this the only breeze.

**

For George Oppen

Some teachers stand out, as such, and the world is not the same

but for them; but for them, the world and all it is speaks, each thing

of its own voice and shape, and the ear, and the heart by way of the ear, hear

and recognize and know.

**

The pages of the journal take the ink as given,

swirls or broken lines, tears of joy or deeper sadnesses

laid neatly out or helter-skelter, the pages take all

that comes, as it comes—ever full;

ever full and enough, at any last lift of the pen,

or before the very first push, the pages,

ever in all their fullness.

**

Each morning,

a rooster--scattering

clustered silences.

**

Under my bared feet, tiles blink

—streetlights off,

the morning sky has its way.

**

Together

we sit, read and write

into late afternoon--Ana Karina,

one of her favorites, on TV, Spanish sub-titles.

**

at the airport, a mural

in muted oranges and yellows, a pastoral

suspended above the continuous rush

of barely controlled frenzy—we arrive in time

to wait to leave

**

Praxis, the Great Practice

Writing the poem, writes the poem.

Saying Buddha’s name, says the name.

The work itself teaches us

where we will next go.

Doing is trusting. Trust is everything.

Recent Mornings

early color

wild mustard sprinkles green-hued yellow

on hillsides

under a sun stunned speechless

in a wintered sky…

on the arm of the brown

leathered chair, an aqua cup,

congealed instant coffee

on the outer lip…

**

The deep pull and draw

of the center to itself—

rain drops and incense.

**

The acacia waits,

holding energies inward,

listening for spring.

**

I didn’t know Cid Corman

but his lines carry a voice still

discernable—rain falls, I hear its drops

1958, in a Kyoto garden

**

Under early lit skies,

walking shadowed streets

silently listening

to pink streaked whispers

pass by.

**

Not knowing the signal,

I watch breezes push past

each branch

and be gone—so much grace

so early in a day.

Letters and poems--early 2010

February 3, 2010

A Letter to my Niece,

first written in the journal you gave to me, so thoughtfully inscribed, leather bound, easily hand held, about which, if asked, I’d have said that I prefer larger pages, except that this one reminds me of you each time I write, and its too small pages seem to push poems from my pen that might not have otherwise come of it—and at least one letter that might not have been written.

I want to tell you, because I believe you’ll understand, that the writing, the poetry, has become bigger and bigger for me in recent years, not so much as to replace my religious life, nor, as I once thought, to challenge it, as such; rather, I have come to understand it as the core of it all, as my primary practice, principal manner of worship and praise, and so have found it helpful from time to time to be around other writing poets—this being the major change—in order to listen, as most recently, a day ago, to the newly inaugurated Poet Laureate of San Francisco, Diane di Prima, who says that the spiritual dimension of writing lies in its isolation.

I’d just stepped back into the room and caught her comments like fragmented sparks that illumined a centered fullness I’d previously been unable to see, and I take this to mean that there, at the desk, solitary, in the chair or on the couch, there, over the pen and empty page, I am alone with my self, in my self, in its unadorned solitariness, the foundational condition of all humanity—indeed, of all existences; we, each of us, are alone and in this common aloneness are intimately connected with each other; all others and me, connected in the blessed paradox of being fully alone, the recognition of this being the spontaneous banishment of loneliness, the restricted, the crippling, a quiet liberation, experienced similarly in the solitary breathing of meditation, in the singular voice sounding the Buddha’s name, and, I would suppose, in that solitary house of prayer, the human heart and mind, ever opening within the ever present possibility of true and real communication, as Ms di Prima whispered, words resonant with integrity, given with the wish that they be helpful.

Realizing our primal aloneness is not only OK, it is the liberating awareness of our inextricable reliance upon and responsibility for all other beings. This, in the writing. This the sustaining influence of the truth of the matter of our singular and collective humanity, our living and dying, both alone and together. I find myself here, resting in the quiet center of the unending vitality of wonder and gratitude.

What a joy, my young Niece.

My love,

Uncle

Why Now ?

Just as day breaks the edge of night,

we walk through wet grasses, into the hills

overlooking the valley and toward open bay waters,

once contiguous marshlands, vital and giving of life,

then given over to fill and then to a park,

landscaped contemporary industrial.

Last night’s rains run normally dry creek beds full

into culverts now, secreted along their way under the town

no longer cognizant of these ancient voices,

nor the rich conversations of sweet meeting brine

that filled for myriad generations the silence

at the feet of these slopes.

But hints of this music can yet be heard

if you venture to the trails above the canyons

on days like today—on days like today, indeed,

if you go there.

In these times…a poem

Startling behavior for weather

in these parts. Thunder and lightening

at any time of year is a surprise here,

almost unheard of in winter.

Moreover, in recent drought years, where

normal has become consistently deficient,

long-term considerations teeter mostly over a chasm of doubt.

Even so the notion itself, long-term, seems estranged these days,

quick returns being the preferred currency.

As much as anyone, I appreciate the sparkle and clarity,

the cleansing function of shallow running streams, but absent the return

to deeper currents, shallow runs simply dry up.

From the year last past...

From the year last passed, poems,

from late July, on

Meeting at Bird’s and Beckett

Like cousins, almost,

the pulse and blood of words

binds us, drives so similar

as to link us as kin,

beyond tongue or skin,

real apparitions,

mind breath’s music

carried to sound.

**

Bathed in the passage of light,

a growing body, actually

a growing body of work.

**

Behold the deepening treasure store of quickened richness,

receding limitations’ collective collapsing horizons of self, into self-sustaining clouds

of endless generosities and genuine gestures of welcome,

so readily, so graciously, received

that songs of praise

carry the only possibility of appropriate response.

**

In Jack Kerouac Alley, at the International Festival of Poets, 2009,

I heard

that Jack Spicer said

at the gates of Babylon, God divides

Man and Words--

Words, He calls Angels

and I saw

from within the shifting shadows

freshly hung laundry flapping sunlight into the sky above

the sounds of the many tongued yet singular song

of love

and I knew

beyond uncertainty

the unbounded community

of undeniable renewal

of the human voice

**

Reflections on this life…

I remember, well yes, maybe as a dream, but I do remember the turmoil

and confusion seeming endless, but was not,

for the depths carry a calm of their own, as does time, that too has a way

its own, and so I have lived to learn to sing, to praise

the ever shifting depths, and that which comes of that.

And so these days, I think myself a poet, yet

for years and upon reflection, for most of the most ordinary of days,

the face of their most common rhythms remain still unspoken,

this silence suggesting, for the poet presumed,

a most purposeful puzzle.

**

I certainly didn’t care how old you were then

and careful consideration tells me it’s not a concern now.

As it always was and continues to be, it is about our time,

your skin, your touch.

**

There is the softest whisper of rain on this morning’s air.

Street lights dim, to better hear; pine needles cease their breathing;

leaves swell and shudder to silence; and shadows wait;

each confident in its hard earned wisdom, each thing in its own way,

in its own time.

**

A haiku life…

Seventeen distinct

drops of sound, blown past the lips

and into the world.

Of fathers and sons…

I’d have said you were gone,

but for those brief glimpses of you, there

in the smile, around the eyes—you there

in the grand son you never knew.

Fully grown now, with your own to care for,

we stand in the shade of ancient trees, speaking of poets

and students and what length makes a line and we agree

to never agree that real work is work at all,

or that, really, we would ever want it to be done.

**

Making music with our voices,

beauty with our words,

makes peace of places

without walls.

**

Fog pressed air, so thick with silence,

morning bird calls must feel their way,

ear by ear…

**

The poet presupposes words,

says the priest, breathing, lifting the pen.

But language presupposed

does not imply words planned.

Wondering, he breathes, lifts the pen.

Reclaiming Weeds, by Layman Gunmo

Reclaiming weeds and grasses

The leather chair creaks, a certain settled folding that only leather will do, a kind of living response, anticipated at the periphery, accepted with a sigh of the familiar delivered, like skin to skin.

Familiar too, this spacious feeling, followed so quickly with the inclination to fill it, latent dis-ease just lying in wait —once the many numbered lists are complete, what must one do?

Left to the open air, seeds sail the unseen ocean of universal sustenance, until settled by circumstance to begin their real work as seeds—reach into the earth, return to the light--all energies and effort ever-extending toward individual fruition, individual realization always the most significant return for the common whole: seeds lifting on the open air.

Weeds and grasses are profoundly prolific, most common and unstoppable, every circumstance an opportunity, cultivation a help or a hazard, dependent upon the discerning eye—one person’s grass, the other’s weed—to pull or not, a matter of time and circumstance, the only must the careful consideration of the inherent righteousness at hand, the beauty in the face of the real work.

Jerry Bolick, aka Layman Gunmo

Nembutsu Poetics

The poetics of nembutsu

In his book of essays, Earth House Hold, Gary Snyder writes that Buddhism is a 2,500 year “conversation,” a “gentle human dialogue…on the nature of human nature and the eternal Dharma,” the eternal truths of the universe of which we are a part. It is a “quiet” conversation, as much internal as external, as much with our selves as with others.

It is “gentle” because its flow is naturally inquisitive—it is not about positions or beliefs. Yet it is vigorous, never lacking vitality, because at every turn it challenges the presumptions of the human mind with myriad “practical methods of realization

Snyder is a poet, interested in language; and the notion of a human conversation is, to my way of thinking, poetic. Though too quick of a read here might suggest that he separates the “methods” he speaks of, from “the conversation.” After all, Buddha Dharma is beyond words, about silence; we hear this all the time

But this perspective is not full enough. The point is not silence vs. words, but awareness. Shin Buddhism is rooted in language—realization is hearing and speaking Buddha’s Name (Namuamidabutsu, known as the nembutsu); that hearing and speaking itself is the heightened awareness of the significance of words in human life. A more full perspective is that “the conversation” includes methods, and that conversation is one of the methods.

Our most casual, unguarded conversations reflect, if we are attentive, both our conscious and unconscious presumptions and assumptions. We all readily assess others by the words they speak and how they are spoken; turning that attention around to see the inner face of our own words is awareness of the true nature of our own mind. “The nature of human nature” unfolds quite naturally during the course of our everyday lives, as we speak, as we are; but we are most often inattentive, unaware.

With awareness, simple attentiveness to the inner face of our own words, within the ongoing conversation—both internal and external--that is our human life, comes not only the realization of the truth of our selves, but the undeniable sensing of the ever present silence that embraces it all—words of suffering, of fear, of joy and courage, words of hate and greed, words of unstinting love and compassion, all arising from and returning to the abiding silence of the Eternal Now.

The fullness of this awareness is nembutsu, one expression of which is Namuamidabutsu. But stopping here, as we usually do, arbitrarily restricts this fullness. To repeat, nembutsu is the fullest implications of this awareness itself, which includes all words expressing this awareness. This awareness is the mark of a life in nembutsu; the dynamic, living truth of human experience in and through words. It is also the field of what we might call nembutsu poetics—the beauty and music of true and real words, arising from, partaking of, the fullness of the truth and reality that is our common humanity.

Poems, July 2009

Blessed detail,

breaths of light, every glance,

every color called,

each rock and all the roadside dust,

clouds of knowing me.

Namuamidabutsu

**

Stafford speaks of readiness, a receptive angle,

an attitude acquired—savvy, I say, savvy

that it carries already, itself and all that’s you, self-contained

in an open sky of ever-unfolding specificity

and Oppen, pointing to the hand

in that song of the self, the hand on the shirt,

that, the point, the touch

the rise and fall

under a rumpled robe, the draw of air

nothing to be done beyond what’s done

of itself, the scratch of pen on padded page

the song of myself singing the song

on the singular run of the single moment in a single life

of vast multiplicity

mingled with words.

**

“Old man!” I stand accused

and, so stricken, can do no more

than demur, spotted as such

in broad day light,

taken down by a word taken in,

by a self-revealing reminder

by someone who knows

and loves—the best of omens.

**

Breathing, high clouds, fog.

The whoosh and buzz

of hummingbirds’ wings.

**

Under pulled-in brows—

useless tension of too much

thought simply wrinkles

**

Without question,

the altar rose opens—effortless

offering of fullness received

**

The patient way

of the settled heart belies

all the fuss and bother

as surely as the first touch of sun light

does the shadowed shuffle and flutter of wings.

**

So unsatisfactory, this difficulty--

no right ticket, right or wrong turn.

Listen. Simply listen.

**

The greatest mystery--

how consistency obtains

without a place to rest.

**

Mine is an interior life, and as such

at times feels a lonely one. I know, of course, I

am no other than all

that passes through—yes, I is We.

But here I sit, alone, looking out

the windowed gate swinging both ways,

letting in the world, always arriving,

everywhere home.

**

Years ago, someone topped

that pine now growing

flowing grass style.

**

Boulder Creek

Clear-headed—

the teaching as liberation from the teaching,

the unencumbered declaring availability

for empty-readied hands,

a time for the poet to speak,

to find himself in the world,

until no longer…

**

Wild ducks this morning,

wedge Northward, cutting their way

through low, seemingly indifferent skies,

the clattered barks of random conversation

meeting within the greater silence

arching overhead.