Meditations

New threads…

First time, morning with

the new daughter and grandson,

rising together.

The lunch box is blue,

a sturdy cloth bag, hand grip

hung from thin fingers.

Rains blew cold throughout

the night. Muffins, juice and tea.

The furnace kicks in.

Like heart beats, these two.

When you’re close enough to hear,

you can feel the heat.

**

All this time…

The beard is white, the hair thin

and wisdom as untouchable as wind

dances where it will.

And amidst the swirl, words

arise to fall to the page, names to utter

in darkness.

Nonsense sounds of sutras, and of things,

meet in the slippery moment, settled

heart and mind,

centered,

the coalescing world

as it is.

The poem is not in

the book, Sam Hamill writes,

the poem is “in the self,”

is of the self become realized,

of the world

aware.

Not an object to be held, except

as on the breath,

the poem is a lived truth.

**

Remembering Bali

The old woman sits beside the passing traffic

selling cigarettes through windows

opened at the stop light.

She counts a wad of bills, weighs change

with knowing fingers,

in the iron heat of afternoon.

Each window gets a squinted glance,

every return

receives its due.

**

The trickle

doesn’t make itself,

it’s the push

of depths at the source

and the pull

of unknown destinations

unfolding,

the flow rejoined…

**

Not one thing the world presents is unworthy

of our attention, nor separate from

our awakening.

Basho suggests one last thing left to learn,

simply, “accept the kindnesses

of strangers.”

**

The poem is in the self.

Sam Hamill

The words just run at times,

slip to the page, looking

a lot like poems might.

But to come to hear Hamill,

recalls for me Ryokan,

who wrote, not “poems,” but

his mind, his heart-mind, his self

as it danced and ran with the world,

as does the poem.

**

Closing pages

The sun drops below the horizon here

well before five, shadows quit, light shifts

to grey cool, a quiet pause,

then headlong rush to winter’s long nights

that leave me numbed, wounded

for lack of light.

“Seasonal depression,” the doctors call it,

the body-mind complex struggles

with too little light—unacceptable,

it responds with lingering sluggishness,

calling over and again for more rest, until

I remember, and speak its name.

Like this evening, the barest show of pink

above the darkening ridge.

Street lights sparkle to life in the hills,

dark’s resting place before rising

to the waiting sky, stars

marking the slow drift of the heavens.

The human mind reaches for the unseeable

by way of words, imagination

moving into waiting meaning—articulation

revealing what cannot be known,

lips saying,

in order to learn what one wants

to say.

The new year--moving in

Poem*

That glimmer of sunlight

in the distant window

to the west signaling

the coming of the sun

into the first-sent light

clearing shadows under

already clear blue skies.

Words occurring in relation,

things voiced and sounded and

joined therein—event—thoughtfeelings

revealing unfolding particularity celebrated,

proliferated…

Love—the urge to share

the heart-mind’s peace—poem.

*gleaned from the work of poet Cid Corman

**

We sit together in late December, watching light

slowly cover the hills to the west, awakened

in the time of giving

to the gift not recognized

till turmoil settles like the dew-like light

of this morning’s wintered sun.

Burdenless, the sustenance of this life’s blood

makes the world larger in its presence,

glimmer with irreversible trends

turned to vows that live in the very flow

we carry that liberates

endless streams of beings,

comforts passions,

teaches all that need be learned

to quiet the excited heart

to gladness.

**

And in the evening, the staccato return

of studied practice and focused effort gives way

to ease the full-throated song.

The self, a story of itself, need not be tamed

but the plot let to broaden beyond its borders—let the self be

to spin its tale

and let the real play begin.

**

As if the mind’s breath swoons

in the swiftness of unlimited possibility

to forget itself long enough to see

it survives without holding on.

**

We give ourselves into Buddha’s teaching

through those who have gone before,

returning that way

to the bedrock of all existences.

**

I’ve not been able to figure if fog has pushed out the night

or the morning in. But here we are.

The same might be said for religious practices

or for the words we live in, if indeed there’s a difference.

Whomever presumes too much specificity here,

loses credibility in these eyes, though trends might be revealed.

Such as effort. Not some hard goal, simply

honest engagement, really doing it.

“Real work,” we might say, movement meaningful

in the doing--meaning doing us.

Rumi’s teacher asked for a poem every day, which they

then studied—his words-life-understanding.

Each day “marked and made conscious.”

Attentions given, explored as is.

Have you ever noticed the silence that follows heartfelt chanting,

any undertaking done fully through,

body and mind unfolded of itself into rest?

**

From behind the stained glass, night sky

pushes colors forward, lamp light reflected,

at times careened in unseen angles

or sometimes held flat, lit as if found out

as opaque, yet refusing to speak of it—like rock

often does, taking all the sun has to offer,

hour after hour, without flinching,

without asking either less or more,

neither comfort nor praise.

Words begin to lose their grip here,

are best abandoned to open-handed intention,

to bared attention—everything before having led here,

nothing lost, all possibilities remain.

**

Certain inclinations, patterns over time,

define unique fluctuations

in the consciousness of our world.

The yellow rose from winter’s garden,

when leaves are to have fallen

to mark the time to prune.

A pink blossom too, on the altar,

a communal sensibility speaking soundlessly

below the scrolled calligraphy

—the trusting heart.

**

The way friends along the way

help you through the rough spots

so that you return whole.

Meditations

All endings speak forward.

**

The Mound in Buckeye Canyon

The coffee is cold, but the thermos’ place in the pack, warm—just my intent

for this wintered mound, as the company is quite good.

Some 5,000 years deep in ancestry. Conversation is easy, but neither distracted

nor light. Better begun with prayer, song perhaps,

and that unstudied pause and collection that allows words to rise from the body

at rest with place and with time,

with all presences thus given their due.

From deep listening, such as this, right future can unfold

and be affirmed, right here.

**

A Gatha

Each morning I step

from the pole’s top to

a foot’s touch and think

I am not falling.

Foolishness like this

abounds where I live,

a most excellent place

to meet the Buddha.

My practice, sloppy,

sporadic, aimless,

I try to follow

only what’s given.

Resorting to trust

where I’ve really none,

I seek guidance that’s

not ever followed,

take refuge with those

who think like me, walk

an endless night, marked

with dim, distant lights.

Receiving unearned

favors and comforts,

offered to someone

not me, I take them.

There is no justice

in this, only gift—

humility too,

gratitude and joy.

Unexplainable.

So what’s left to do

but what needs doing,

as best I can, for

all who may need it.

Namuamidabutsu

**

Too short, a night run through with too long a stream of thoughts,

though certain epiphanies nonetheless, though none of which seeming

to carry much weight with the pen, nor influence

with the blank face of the page.

Disconnect is not real, but the sense and the feel, even so slight,

is not to be denied, however so slight the blinded flight,

the empty bottomed flush of fear, of isolation,

of meaning forgotten.

Yet, and again, doing’s being and meaning somehow carries

in this—the push of the pen to scratching, marks the dust of separation

with remembrance of the fullness of silence,

where dissolution of disconnection illumines

the immeasurable and the unmistakable.

**

There is the grey morning’s cold to contend with,

the constant start and thrum of the furnace and the sun’s long refusal

to touch distant windows to begin the day,

even as I wait without spoken complaint.

In the greater stillness winter brings, patience is its own test.

Butterflies in the making, just below the stiffened grass,

deep-seated roots at work in their own service, and the earth

preparing its surface for the rains to run first,

before the deeper work to come--reminded

in the quieted draw and release of breath, my body settles.

Still is not dormant.

**

Many things come to us in the night to affirm,

to allow doubt’s release ease to untroubled rest,

like rain, with its softest steps, that we hear first

as if we do not, then do, knowing it’s rain

only when we know our hearing,

as if rain comes a lightest possible presence

to wake us to our own, to that most safe harbor,

that surest awakening self as other.

**

A story

Stars are there to assure us night is good.

Moon too. They hold light till morning so that we might rest.

The night, the stars and the moon,

all for us, for all creatures

needing sleep.

**

Two small terracotta birds perch on the railing on the deck outside the window

directly opposite of where I sit,

shift their wings and lift their feet, and do so again and then again,

and each time I start and pause, then see the cup

lifted to the lips, each time a signal, a sign passed through glass invisible

but for this mirrored intersection of recognition

that brings into question lingering presumptions of difference.

**

Felt tipped pens glide like silk without the whisper,

but leave blemishes backside the page, excesses of ease

scattered here and there—for me, this does not do.

Ballpoint, a pencil, better for the effort.

Even the slightest pull speaks to work heard, words working

tangles of confusion toward the light.

Living leaving tracks,

signs, crevices signaling where its been,

where it’s thinking of going.

Uncovered interludes

I’m told I use quiet words

but wonder, really, which those are

the world itself presents itself

as such so often, how else can one respond

the wave’s reach that seeps the sands,

the spray that’s given to air…

of these, as among the many blessings,

not one is loud.

**

That which turns me toward peace,

is my own rage

and the threat that speaks to.

**

Winter’s come, leaves turned and now

fall through mornings clean with the constant chill

of shortened days, the quickened pulse,

the reach for fullness enough to live,

just to live, just enough.

**

Buddha…

the name

held close in the heart

whose public face

is kindness.

**

The angle just so

catches the light underside

burn—a Robin’s breast.

Glimmering there

beneath nonviolence—

no harm.

**

How we hear

Just above the horizon,

under hovering clouds, a thin break

of clarity

the push of light pours

salmon-gold across the watery face

of the bay

draws me still, standing in the street,

waiting, a word, a name perhaps,

a voice surely

working its shadow-less way

through the certainties

of breath shared

of numberless becomings,

of the myriad possible tongues recognized

in the quickening

of the heart.

**

The Sufi

After the whirling,

the young teacher,

long-time friend to our guide,

answers our questions,

while the Master,

also now in street dress,

quietly serves tea.

**

Pressing to Harran, we skirt the northern border of Syria

at the Temple of the Moon God, pre-Islamic cult

of ancient astronomers overlooking

the high, fertile plains of Mesopotamia.

They, as do we, built gates, entryways

where none was needed—how much has changed,

how much not?

**

Call to prayer fills the room,

followed by light, by the sun’s warmth

that flows through every window opened,

to every opening heart.

Urfa.

**

Gianzatep, Turkey,

one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities

in the world.

Allah has ninety-nine names. Amida Buddha, the sutras give ten.

For those who still count.

In either case, in any event

what matters, is the name in the mouth

that’s speaking it.

All else follows.

Of this earth

It cannot save us

from ourselves,

but it will

salvage the pieces.

**

It’s not the bad things that happen. It’s where someone reaches out in a human way

to someone else that seems to be charged.

I’m concerned with work that lets us be passively engaged with it because right now there’s enough in the world that does that.

I don’t think that’s what poetry is about.

Nick Flynn, interview, citation misplaced

**

The point of connection is always the same,

thought aside that is—we connect

essentially in action, in exchange, in movement,

spontaneous, unique, shared

even in difference, co-extending

currents of connections.

The poem, says Bill Stafford,

is that group of words

that catches the reader’s attention,

just so…

**

Getting it “right is not about thought.

**

The priest performed the service at the shrine of his deceased child

every morning, at dawn

…for years. He did not ask

for any comforting but said

the printed words of the sutras

and poured fresh tea

into the images’ cups, then looked

out at the sea and sky

and turned to his daily work

of telling the living to live

and the dead ones to rest in peace.

Edith Shiffert, from The Kyoto Years

**

Aspen leaves quiver

in thin morning light, practice

before the sunrise.

**

I can’t say if this

is what my teachers had in mind,

only that it is mine.

**

I believe what my whole life says.

William Stafford 2/16/82

Is this vocation?

Seems lately that all I’ve left is words

that lead me endlessly,

albeit beautifully,

nowhere,

run their course, leave me

naked, a singular pulse

in the world spread large,

awake

in the close-abiding silence

some call home

to the poem,

with nothing left

but to give myself

to it.

**

Butterfly wings, white

on white, flutter the courtyard—

shadows illumined.

**

Afternoon lies bright

on the deck overlooking

the high end of this small valley,

carrying light

the children’s voices

from the field aside the school,

organized play

made reckless and free,

affirmed as such.

**

San Pedro County Park

My path or yours?

The question was never posed.

The cat, lying large, center trail

in the sun, simply rose

and disappeared, leaving me there,

alone and glad.

**

The poet Buson

laments any day empty

of poems—possible?

**

Dreams are stories not yet lived.

Recollections sometimes speak of authentic innocence.

Each can be weighed in stories

now being told, adjustments made in their living.

**

First principles

The first principle at work is joy,

straight-forward residual of doing willingly

for others--the heart spreads, the mind rests,

each feeling more true

the matters at hand.

Though I’ve sympathy

for many named movements,

these I trust most.

**

It’s the light touch

that does us well, steady,

unobtrusive,

doing what it does,

as it does, we right there

at the rise of every breath.

**

Attentiveness is

not what we lack,

but who we are, bundles

of attentive receptors

responsively learning our way

the current shows

across the myriad pebbles,

among the rocks

against the smoothing banks,

the truest of our voices

always rising forth.

Owl Canyon, San Bruno Mountain

It’s a soft gateway, slow rising slopes to either side,

winter wet-lands, now an easy stretch of dulled thatch,

a cushioned bed for the softest surprise of beige-green

blends of grasses, topped specific

with rich chocolate nuggets.

An artist’s pallet, to be sure, well beyond the range of this tongue,

and I wish for my daughter-in-law’s presence,

her depth of color-sense, to hear her words

over this familiar meadow, making itself

made known anew.

*

Dropping into the gully where the big bay lives and the stream,

I disturb some crows at rest in the high branches, who without showing themselves,

start up scolding and complaining back and forth in the shadows.

Startled myself, I say I’m only passing through, that I come empty handed

and will leave the same. But it continues, they continue.

The webs that grabbed my face along the trail

suggest few visitors of late, even the winter rains have run their course,

the stream dry now, gone—I have intruded.

I speak again, to offer a song, a prayer, and sit on the limb of that oak

in the deserted camp of the hermits. I chant so they can hear,

melodic as possible, but the crows remain unconvinced.

It’s only when I add the wish of peace

for all things living that they calm, only when I’m done with that

that they quiet and take wing,

leaving me alone to care for the silence of this place.

*

Coming out of the summer hills, where color

traces among mixed grasses, flies on petals and wings,

I arrive at the edge of the industrial park,

face to face with the red, white and blue, fully blustered

in the wind, beautiful, in its way

under the sun—I nod, so as not to offend,

but pass quickly,

quietly keeping my distance.

Sierra poems

blowing along

blowing along...

a little butterfly

-Issa, 1804

From the Sierra…

good news, a breathtaking abundance of wild flowers, now at its height in this late starting season. Just returned from two nights and three days in the Carson Pass area of the El Dorado National Forest, a few miles into the wilderness, off Hwy 88.

The flowers were stunning, walking through garden after garden of color beyond words; and at both of the peaks we managed to scramble, just below 10,000 ft., we were met by the joyous dancing of high mountain butterflies.

Lake Winnemucca,

under an arc of illumined star dust

--the Milky Way

flows over our heads, tossed

and turned by night winds.

**

Well, it was light,

before the sun, the sky clear

of everything.

So I went to the lake

to bathe.

Night winds

pushed the last of the ice

to rest against snow covered out crops

rising a thousand feet

above,

the rushed and dimpled surface

now coming, as I,

under the early reach of the sun,

in witness—a kind word

for this kind feeling,

not to explain or capture,

but to respond in kind

to the love

therein extended.

**

All throughout the day and the night,

snow-melt cascades,

its mark, the silent stretch of granite

into the waiting sky.

Marmots appear with the first fall of sunlight,

young and old, each atop

a single of the scattered rocks,

each alone, to sit and listen.

A place of ancient prayers, a time

of refuge—wishes are sung here, hearts

offered over the lake in the many tongues

found in the winds—whispers, here received.

And as the birds, two of them, call out

three times, then turn to take their leave,

I turn to my bowed shadow to vow

not to go back to sleep.

**

Back in the low-lands, again…

Becoming not so certain

at all, of most things, any

thing, tentative steps become

the certainty, a certain

kind of dance, light, attentive,

wondering where the music

falling itself off the tongue

will lead, wondering whose heart

directs the next joyous step.