But that was yesterday...

Even in Croatia, the day composes

the poet-scribe—and translation, well,

that seems to come of its own.

                                     9/1

**

The isle of Korchula—4 AM

The wife slips out of bed

to meet church bells.

One for each hour

enters the air-conditioned hum

to flicker unsatisfactorily.

Answers fail confused complaints

and sleepless dreams

surround the darkened waves

of empty space, everywhere.

Nothing touches of home.

                                                          9/3

**

Budapest—the date on my watch

rolls and clicks, so it must be so.

Through the lobby doors,

past the old men in the park,

crows hold place in towering limbs,

crouched and muted shadows,

shuddering rains.

                                             9/14

**

Prayer and gratitude—

and do I find them again

or they again find me

in heart-felt folds,

on lips and breath

that say yes…

             

**

Of current events

and where to turn

in a world such as this

today…but to that concert

of singular heart beats…

**

9/16

At home, after weeks away, fits

like skin rediscovered.

**

Looking at 71—even at this age,

startled by my own shadow.

                                                    9/20

**

Look long

into the night sky

before saying alone

aloud—and even then,

if asked, I’d say

OK to that.

**

Mists clear with the coming light.

Morning prayers, the soft rush of breath

made whole for the world at large.

**

As a young man, I didn’t fully appreciate

how the music moves on its own,

how despite misplaced apprehensions,

songs were there all along.

**

10/8

After Ko Un

Early autumn leaves.

Will I dance too,

when I leave?

**

Indian Summer

We watch each other

across the courtyard

in the front of the house,

the hummingbird and I,

where shadows

first begin to stretch

beyond the reach

of the day’s sun.

**

Why poetry ?

Because of the way the words spill

to leave in their wake intimations

of insights gleaned from where

they have come, from where

they themselves have been.

                                “…if poetry is life, and I believe it is…

                                           when the words come, I trust

                                               they’re the right ones.”

                                                                                Robert Lax

**

Krishnamurti believed

we should write

our own sutras.

I’ve come to see

how right

that is.

**

Simply, to communicate.

Not to argue, nor convince,

but to simply communicate, simply.

                                                           10/17

Dinky Lakes

Dinky Lakes Wilderness,

Sierra National Forest   Mid-August 2014

Late, in the warmth of the bag,

a thin volume of poems

in high country

—eyes still wide,

abandoning the words

of the ancients,

I turn to my back

to return the gaze

of the waiting

sea of stars…

**

John Muir calls the Sierra, the “range of light,” and so it seems. At 1:00 AM,

the Big Dipper spills southward, luminous dusts of the Milky Way scour the dark

and the moon casts light through the quiet pines, just enough for me to rise and pee.

          Unpremeditated…

          take again the given winds

          that fold the syllabled words

         

          to where the earth and the sky

          and water and fire 

         

          come to speak and to mean…

               “Deep in the woods, unknown to the world,

               A bright moon comes and shines on me.”

                            

                                     from Wang Wei’s (?701-761),  “Bamboo District’s Lodge”

**

Directions to the cabin

at Boulder Creek    August 24, 2014

Leave Highway #9 to the right,

on Prospect:

climb the canyon’s walls

to where the reach of trees circles

a cache of sky so clean

Heaven need only let go

to find its way.

Where Heaven and Earth meet.

That’s it.

**

Scatterings

Be receptive.

We are never not receiving.

It is never not reciprocal.

That's all.

**

8/29

I can tell you only of my experience and even that is suspect. A dream

within a dream, Dogen said—and our contemporary, Ko Un, living openly

in his native Korea, cautions: inclinations

toward the ‘much more’ that lies beyond imagination, that too:

a dream known as ‘greed.’

**

9/18

At 5 A.M. the streets are still, empty but for lamp-lit shadows

that seem to accept, without protest, every soundless passing, low-looking clouds

the only ones to leave a trace.

**

10/4

In a place with tools that are used,

worked for the fun, for the joy,

where order is not overly so.

A space of movement, sweat and smiles,

of lingering scents of incense and bells,

the hum of human lungs

and that silence that surrounds

the settled heart.

**

9/29

to Robert Lax then

and to the solitary work

of this solitary mystic poet

of the Isle of Patmos,

unselfconscious model

of charity and grace, received

and the nature of play as prayer

that comes of that.

The work is ourselves,

the dance our living with others

and the foundation the music

that makes it all so.

**

10/5

Life-death has its own reason.

May today and all that it is

bring us closer, clearer…