Let’s face it,
you can look
into one
set of eyes
at a time.
All the rest
is just talk.
**
I prefer paper cups to those with saucers,
stir-sticks to balanced spoons and an hour
on a park bench
to any waited table—hanging out
opens venues that can’t be touched
by smoothed white linen.
Song
is voice
uninterrupted.
**
We turn into the light
that draws us that way.
**
Home
is poem
sounding offerings
of return
as praise.
**
Which voice of whose words today
fill cloud-empty skies ?
Let me hear…
**
Wind chimes silhouette
a windless sky.
What might be said, isn’t.
Cupped coffee steams.
**
12/31/15
From between the houses,
the coyote lopes into the street.
Heading toward the wild,
he stops and stares.
I stare back, not sure enough
to smile.
****
1/2/16
Inattention
is the only
unpardonable.
And even then,
everything
is taken care of.
**
Salvation happens.
Release is grip let go.
You know what I mean.
**
Puddles in night time streets
hold whatever street lights
have to give
and for as long—both leave
when day comes,
the sun
giving other things
to others, even
the owls.
**
It’s not what we are
or where we are,
but that we are
that begets
that wonder
without which
the world
loses color.
**
Recent rains rush the streams,
shorten the nights and clean the streets
near trees where owls meet.
**
A break in the clouds reveals a broken moon.
It’s the silver voice, but do take note
that conclusions drawn here
may be tilted.
**
Morning prayers come in all flavors, and some
without voice take space left over in the peripheries,
theirs by default, but theirs so thoroughly
others barely notice the resonance that holds us
together, as all—simply by trusting openness
where it comes.
**
Of so many things learned,
the warmest is the heart of the giving
I continue to receive.
**
Some say authentic poems sound
as does an unfinished block of wood
struck with a mallet in morning’s quiet:
unmistakably true to itself.
**
Mornings like this stay dark,
clouds hover and earth
curls with cold.
And although light quiets
its own dreams, everyone
knows the count.
**
Old age, that retreat
you never had time for.
**
We can’t say clouds don’t care.
I saw them this morning, right there
in the puddles, checking up
on last night’s work.
**
How many face-to-face encounters
are possible in a life-time?
Well, how many faces
do you think you have ?
**
Almost full, almost
clear, winter moon in winter
western morning sky.
**
Fog swallows the crow,
all but the call
that is.
**
Rains abate.
Breeze-held promises
whispering returns.
**
Have you noticed,
as I think the poets have,
that words willingly run free,
even when they can’t see ?
**
To benefit others is reason enough.
**
One comfort of returning home
is that it always smells the same,
like incense caught when entering
the door behind the altar.
****
Santoka was a wandering poet who lived in Japan. He broke all the rules
of formal haiku, and then some. He “found” poems as and where he roamed.
I found this one among his journal entries, translated into English for us
by Choto Oyama, a friend of Santoka’s in his later years.
The Buddhist Temple of Chicago published a small collection in 1987.
Santoka’s entry was dated February 15, 1934. It was snowing.
The snow’s robes,
getting heavier and heavier.
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