This living...

This living…

June--July 2013

In the end, there is no answer,

only song—songs of momentums

of moments of resonance,

passing.

**

Awake

It’s not so much that “I thought”

but my thinking was such

that my living was so

that the world as it was

seemed a constant nuisance,

endlessly interrupting, forever

intervening in the story

in my mind.

Then one day, it got through.

And now I see the reverse is true.

**

Voice rides breath that ride winds that ride

seminal vibrations that sound—say the teachers:

follow just one thing, all the way through.

**

the depths of the working of breath

may only be discerned by mind made quiet

as it follows where it leads

**

Voice of course is breath embodied,

breath, the wind’s wish for a rounded earth,

whispered amongst myriads of limbs.

**

Poems in morning

And in morning’s quiet,

the house still, is only the chill

that drifts, that lets the window opened

feel the pass of night, feel the blessings

bared and at rest in the calm

of the heart at home.

**

the density…

of lived experience is such

that moments of clarity and calm

are like quiet clearings

stumbled upon in the wilds

—a bit of a stretch

to claim too much credit

**

Attending

After a long absence,

returning to work the garden

—it all comes back.

**

A scattering of haiku—for Fritz,

thinking of transition

Fallen leaves make the earth.

Ideas, seasoned by light,

cushion every step.

*

Mature growth, rich life:

always in proportion to

how well we let go.

*

Cautionary: trees

sometimes hold their leaves too long—

like us, still survive.

*

Age gifts pure practice,

ready or not. No cushions,

no bells. Only change.

*

Even seclusion

is in relation—how else

to breathe, but for leaves.

**

In the meadows of Lyell Canyon, Yosemite

July 2013

Promise floats in the air here, lean, immediate,

without presumption; and this high mountain dirt,

rich, abundant meadows spread wild with color

for any who will come this far.

Chanting ancient songs across these meadows looking out

at glacier-covered peaks, seems more than just appropriate, more

like an act of the wind, itself lifting voice above the stream,

through the grass, into the pines and along the rock-faced ridges

at rest at the gates of heaven.

Humility sprouts in all who plant their feet here, even for awhile,

unfolding on the breath before thought, as natural a grace

as the cloud-traced contours of distant glaciers,

wind-blown, light filled shadows

passing among myriads of hints

of healing and wholeness.

**

Mornings

he sits at the altar,

incense wafts,

breath settles, light falls,

wonder unfolds

to sustain

like the pulse of the out-stretched hand

that pulls forth the praise that follows the prayer

that opens the heart,

that gentle persistence, the softest scratch

that pulls each page, as it pulls each breath,

to the fullness of its turning.

**

July 4^th

The Big Dipper,

large and low in the North.

Here in the South, we too get up

in the dark, to pee.

More with less...

More with less—poems

from May 2013

There was once a man who wrote

each day, pen to page to swirl and to scratch,

to press into meaning the meandering lines,

to trace the tracks along the shore

or traceless futures of untellable trails

that lift into the sky.

And some mornings of summer’s longer days

when dappled sun light reached to touch the hand

as it touched the pen that touched the page,

he’d pause, as always pleased to bow his head,

then again begin to move the pen.

**

It’s that we love, that

we love, that moves us most.

**

Dimpled to opaque,

the colored sheet of cultured glass

hung from the bamboo trellis,

sways with the weight

of captured sun beams.

**

To Jonathan and Victoria

Phrase was the term she used,

the recurring theme in the piece he played,

not passage, nor line, more the rhythmic murmur,

the sounded pulse insistent of ought but itself,

self-contained, readily moved where best received,

but best understood in the gathered hush

of pass and return,

over and again.

**

To wake in darkness before stirring birds

to find winds finally quiet,

fog but broken mist in chilled air

as the first of the sun

lights into the clearing skies

and yet to walk almost blind

with churning argument—it is this then,

it is this, is it not, that condition called human.

**

Like those tall pink blossoms in the garden

jostle and sway, thoughts too speak

of what’s being said.

**

Call it meditation

if you will, if you must

call it something,

but know the quiet mind

is itself already

the work.

**

The ancient masters do not quibble—joy

is real, as is travail; life is rife with both.

Skillful negotiation is key,

compassion its natural associate.

**

Brief auto-biography

Having come to know, this alone leads.

Not hope nor fear, not past nor future,

but this now, this sounded song,

this trail and curve of the breaking wave,

the spread and swell, the articulate turn

of each and every word.

**

Sandino David

In the park at the top of Fruitvale

with the grandson asleep,

each at his age in grass in sun

and all that has occurred

and is done—breezes rush,

leaves tremble, grasses crease at our feet,

and the sky that whispers its mark

on this time in this place as right.

**

The ripple speaks

of current

that moves it

to speak of

its movement—

thus, the stream.

**

to Irma

colored glass—filtered light—glinting

silver—shifting shapes—passing

eyes delight…

Spring poems

April and May 2013

Watching the inmates

The open page takes

everyone, just as they are.

Heads bow. Words begin.

**

By example—a haiku with commentary

Like leaves pulled by winds

hold tight to branched extensions

of roots holding firm.

Even before our fingers form, culture

begins to show us how—but different grips

are possible--some even letting go.

**

Wonder:  heart freed of thinking.

Calculation stretched to snapped

does not prevent fulsome release

for those who’ve come to see

the more

that makes it

what it is.

**

Dove calls alone

in early light.

Clocks pulse

the empty kitchen.

Reflection gifts

ever-embracing space

and silence.

**

Somehow the first of May has come and gone

a mark on a calendar unremembered 

much like myriad single breaths thoughtlessly taken

then given away that pass nonetheless

through traceless minutes’ days—but for that

slight attentive pause, just there passed.

**

Days stretch in summer,

lighted lingering coming

slowly to night stars.

**

Chanting Buddha’s name

Unfathomably vast a matrix of realms of truths

carries our each and every muttering—resonant thereof.

**

Coastal grasslands, swelled prairie bluffs,

tales of ancient oceans outlasted.

**

Saint Francis, oh, Saint Francis,

how many, many times your

image has moved me.

Your saintly qualities though,

they’re human,

aren’t they.

**

It took some time

to see the time

to preach

is done—so let

the poems come.

**

While some words say,

         poems do,

participate, engage.

Written or read,

        spoken or heard,

poems move…

**

What part of nothing more to do isn’t clear? Snakes,

over time, leave their skin behind. The screen-door

out to the back porch, it slams every time—mornings,

over coffee, I write; evenings burn incense and chant.

**

You

swoop in

like a boardwalk gull

to snatch up guarded bits

of joy…

then lift off

in dust and tufts

of disregard

for those

who would but share,

not swallow.

Sad.

So, so sad.

**

Altar incense burns

a barely visible thread

of tenuous tie

to tradition

nearly faceless

save the solidity of voice

and so we mutter and chant

and sing affirmations of foundations

of living breath.

**

Soft pink streaks sky clearing clouds to blue.

Garden flowers toll stillness.

**

No one to wake

at this hour,

the barking dog

celebrates

with everyone

within ear-shot;

even passing cars slow 

to hear

and not break

this living stream

rarely heard

as music.

Wind blown

Wind blown…March into April

Low fog lifts, day light

descends, moist leavings tracing

each step into spring.

**

Big Dipper—floats in

dark skies, turns, tilts, never fails

to point the way home.

**

Promised fog arrives,

blanket-shadows morning light.

But for one west-placed window,

ablaze with a different dream.

**

Breath as sound…

suggestions of elegance, to be sure,

but the old masters took note

of a certain radiance—visceral, joyous.

**

What we offer over

in the world

is the whole of our living,

every time—our mistake

is thinking

it’s not.

**

The poet strives

to make words say

as much as he would

have them say

and trusts 

that desire they ride

that makes them say

all the more.

**

what winds of circumstance

pull from our hands,

frees us

**

Glow burn—a sudden rush of rightness

splays light through dark

disappeared—forgetting words

that would write this right,

I draw these instead.

**

Studies in light ask

for light-handed inquiry.

**

Watching the inmates…

the open page takes

everyone, just as they are.

Heads bow, words begin.

**

The body drags itself

out of sleep these days, full

with windswept pollens.

Miniscule puffs of life

circulate, settle and collect—like

the weight of age.

**

Time bends—deep purple

strokes in the wisteria,

darker than before.

**

April 8^th and already

multiple pages,

meanderings of a mind

set free at the tip of a pen

to simply speak—simply

to speak simply, of itself enough.

**

April 13^th

The celebration

The day opens on tides of quiet light

and shadowless blue—hushed bird calls

echo blessings already underway.

*

For Erin and Edwin

The range of light

attributable

to laughter,

to smiled embrace, 

close-knit warmth,

to the firm press of lips

and casual words of tenderness

spoken in witness

of the tenuous reach of darkness

as eyes meet in the glow of love.

**

To  Leslie—afterthoughts

To think—this spontaneous

ingenuity so troublesome

holds unopened avenues

of collective salvation,

one whole one at a time.

*

Sincerity—effort

to make inside meet out.

*

Faith—trusting sincerity,

wherever we find it.

*

Amen…

for even just one voice

among the many varied turnings

of that light that outshines the sun

just so.

February and into March

February 25^th

This the shortest month,

though not as short as

could be

rushes to close,

leaving only

glimpses

where we’ve been,

the way headed,

except

for now: forever

rainless skies and a brim-full moon

of patience.

…and into March…

A song for the manzanita—

five faces, one hill

When I contemplate the life-length of this mountain,

the seventy years it took me

to smell its dust

like this

do not rise

except to its reflection—we together

or not at all,

not at all ever alone.

**

“Stars,” for us,

but traces, really,

of what stars really are.

**

Waking in the night

from dreams of frost covered hills—

the sheen of moonlight.

**

Study, paperwork,

a walk and early planting.

And while standing in the kitchen

before evening chanting,

my life spreads clean

as the counter-top before me,

ripples

at my ankles. 

**

Buddhist contemplative…

No blame. We simply

get it wrong, and are carried

along just the same.

**

Light inside, dark out,

making mirrored images

where once was window.

**

Schooley 3/2/13

On the slopes in the sun

amidst the manzanita, he says:

“I bow to the mountain.”

**

Every thought, same story—like

streams in the darkened sky, trails

of ever thinning light,

precarious blessings,

angels’ exhales,

warmed whispers

on bared fingers,

fumbling

in the night.

**

Zuiken Sensei

That cigarette-smoking old man

studied dharma a life-time

or more. Or more.

Left accrued knowledge

to the page, opted

instead for spirit.

That unencumbered

breath rising

through his own.

**

Low fog lifts, daylight

descends, moist leavings tracing

each step into spring.

**

Because blossoms’ bouquet.

Because incense burning.

Because the altar’s quiet.

Buddha’s raised hand,

beside, the silent monk,

the gladdened heart, at rest.

**

Spring Report—March 27^th

As light lingers longer,

as sun betrays clinging chills,

your illness withers

and fades, dark winter dreams

heal in the hands of spring.

Re-reading borrowed words

Traceless in the night sky,

distance-hidden light,

yet to be heard.

**

Where words fail, gassho:

hand gesture of whispered essentials,

dance of timeless connections,

myriad unbound breaths

commingling whole beyond

conception—an ocean reality,

where “wet” has no meaning.

                               gassho: palms together

**

Sky…

the sky

doesn’t lie

takes in

everything

everyone

just the same

empty

**

Threshold…

Have you ever, at this time

of day—the sun dropping so early

below even the lowest slopes, light

shifting radical grey, sudden chill

fallen—have you ever been here

like this, and not turned

as to your lover’s lips

just as they say your name ?

**

“My shadow,” I call him,

walks the morning streets

with me, never talks,

never mentions his name.

**

Words

Though ill-advised

to try to make them say

more than they do,     they

often do.

**

The flag

on the pole

on the corner

at dawn.

Folds flutter—

breeze

barely

perceptible.

Presidents’ day.

**

Like this mountain

holds itself

and breathes me,

we can live

this way, alone

with others.

**

Shadows slant.

“Too soon,”

the wife says.

Day’s sun sets

south west,

moon rises.

Clear and cold,

chilled air 

calls the sky.

Crystalled points

of light

to help us

find our way.

**

Hanging out with the poet—

watching the moon with Tu Fu,

some twelve-hundred years between us,

the translator says,

as he tips and arcs its image

in tones as soft as its light.

Twelve-hundred years. Tu Fu,

can that be so ?

**

Lingering questions:

Does life unfold, or do we unwrap it—and, if so,

what does it matter?

Do I learn first,

or does my teaching finally teach it to me?

Can lack of ambition be achieved—can we strive

to be satisfied?

What have we done to deserve so much

light—and what of those who continue to love us, even so ?

And what does all this tell us of how we might better live

the time left ?

February poems

Early February, a Friday

I’ve got the day of the week right,

but can’t yet affix the correct number to it.

High clouds ride invisible winds,

streamed snatches of blue sky, rippled shadows

tracing the roughened face of the rain-soaked earth.

Dreams of names and of numbers

hold no more sway, yet none less here

than bird song or early buds.

Let them unfold in the music

that’s their very own, that carries them

all their way through.

**

…and bow…

They’re called “wall flowers,”

San Francisco region natives

that dot upper slopes

from early spring, or before,

when runs of warm clear days

break winter rains.

Four broad petals, innocent

shaped

as a child’s fingers might make,

white-beige

to soft yellow,

and a startling burst

of floral aroma

that says,

to only the closest nose:

that which seems

most unassuming, may be a signal

to slow down,

to bow.

**

“Everywhere is the silencing

of ideas. That is Buddha.”

                           Thich Nhat Hanh

Wanting, in the morning quiet

of my study, to follow this,

and your voice speaks my name,

sets down the book, closes…

**

February first

The resonance of chimes emerges

from the peripheral silence,

presence alone speaking everything

of consequence,

before and after resting

right here in the pulse-beat of our veins.

Mythical vows of antiquity remembered

as if our own,

the gentle sadness and the joy

at having nothing, grants everything.

**

These winter mornings, the moon

stays high,

setting slow in the west

well after light arrives.

Night’s dew too,

lingers.

**

For David and Kaji

We swarm, we humans, we gather like gnats

in afternoon sunlight along the trail,

old friends and new

sharing stories of suffering and of healing,

here on the warm slopes

of the mountain.

                Buckeye Canyon, 1/30/13

**

A tinge of normal

returns to our world. Once again,

you correct me.

**

Nanao Sakaki:

Turn off

the street lights

and

moon and stars

jump out

in all their glory!

**

The heart, trusted

like morning’s incense,

suggests a newness akin

to the shift from night to day,

returning remembrance wherein

nothing’s forgotten,

a turning over within

ever-arching horizons

of timelessness,

almost incomprehensibly tender.