YOU THINK SO, HUH?

The words are scattered
all over the floor, with
the books, papers, god knows
what else waiting to move
to its new home the next
bedroom over, my wife and I
having decided to swap
home offices, after eight years.
They are upset at being dislodged
don't like at all being disembedded
and vow that for some time
much of what I write
will look remarkably like this.

THERE IS NO DOG IN THIS POEM

Billy finishes his reading
to robust applause, thanks
his hosts and proceeds to the tables
set up the the lobby of the theatre
pen clutched firmly in hand.
The slow procession to him is orderly,
we hold out our books reverently
await the kiss of his Sharpie.
Let us freeze this scene, Billy
smiling a practiced smile
pen firmly grasped, hovering
over the title page.  Let us
peel back his scalp that time
has prepared for us
be shedding the obstructive hair
and let us carefully lift off the skull
and peer quietly into the mind
of the now famous poet.  It isn't
what you expected, a brain calculating
his royalties on the books being sold
on the adjacent table, how the soon
to come added sales on amazon.com
could easily raise his newest book
to the 38,785th most popular.  No,
it is neither of those, just
a mind smirking I've
hooked still one more
on the drug that is poetry.

READY?

The Buddha said
when the student is ready
the teacher appears.
My Rabbi used to say
when you are ready
the Lord will appear
but you may not recognize
God and that's okay.
Both Buddha and my Rabbi
actually said
that when you are ready
you will appear
and it is then
you will no longer
recognize yourself.

PACKING

Boxing books for donation
I am surprised it's now easier
to part with those whole flyleaf
might say Scribner & Sons, 1815
than far less impressively bound
volumes of modern poetry.
It might be that for most
of the contemporaries there is
still the chance of the meeting
while Pope's and Swift's ashes and dust
have long since been carried off
on the ever present wind of history.
It certainly wouldn't be
that in for precious shelf inch
the ancients bring a far greater
tax deduction.  No, not really.

IF

He asks When?
as if it were all
a matter of timing,
as if the immediacy
or lack of it
somehow really mattered.
She would never ask that
but would want
to know who.
She's far too polite
to ever ask why
preferring to replay the scene
in her eye's mind
allowing for a thin
veil of mystery.
each wants to know
how the other found out
but neither has
the slightest idea
where this all began.

SEEING RED

Tomorrow morning
I will step outside
and on the Austrian Pine
hope to see
the crimson flash
of the cardinal's wing
foretelling the day to come.
We will bow
each to the other
and await the sun.
Even the squirrels
will pause and take notice.
This is my fondest hope
for I have grown weary
of the egotism
the self-preening
of the crows each morning.
How dare they
act so human.

PAUSE

and there are
those rare days
when the less
said is
the better
and this
is

APOLITICAL?

The space between

want and need

is at once a vast gulf

and the width of a hair,

much the same as that

separating luck and greed.

It is only in the eye’s mind

that the gap is insurmountable

and we give up hope

that those who live

in the land of want

will ever look across

the border of tears

and truly see those

who are doomed

to toil endlessly

in the land of need.

EQUINOX

As night settles in
and the clouds grow uncertain
of their intentions,
it is hard to realize
that a boundary
is silently crossed
and summer has
retreated into the past
leaving a new season
in its wake, harder
to know that tomorrow
we will awaken into
an autumn that at first
seems no different
than her mother, only
her promise of fall-
ing leaves soon painting
her in her true colors.

ETERNITY

The veggie burger settles
in a pond of bad cabernet.
The clock refuses to move
and here the arrow
is a stop sign and time
will not go against its tide.
She is home, Mystie
on her lap decrying
my absence, as I bemoan
the same from the vinyl
seat in the aging terminal
awaiting the flight
to freedom and eight years
of joy suspended for a day
that grow more painful with
 the non-passage of time.

THAT WHICH GOES UNSAID

 -- To my Boddhisattva whose name is light

Her finger, tracing my cheek

Her eyes, my last sight 

          as night enfolds me

Her smile welcoming

          both the sun and I

Her shiver, as I trace

          her spine beneath the quilt

Her laugh, heartfelt, at a joke

          best left untold

Her joy at hearing

          what was said

          and what was not

He words, bringing

          laughter and tears

          by turns, but which

          no one wishes to forget

Her lips, their whisper

          that I carry from the house

          and through my day

Eight years

          the impossible has been real

          the undeserved offered in abundance

          the unattainable in hand

That which goes unsaid

          but is always on the tongue

          and within the heart.

HEKIGANROKU 67

If I am on the mat
when you ask me
where is the path
I will settle on my cushion
in response.
If I am walking
when you ask me
where is the path
you will expect me
to keep walking.
What if I climb up
and sit upon
your shoulders?
I will place my hands
fully over your eyes.
Now do you see the path?
The blind man
is free of such troubles.

HIGH FALLS

The water plunges over the falls
heaping at their base before
sliding down the river.
It pays no attention
to the small crowed gathered
on the bridge, ignores the deer
on the island in the river
intent in grazing
on summer's last grasses.
The people wander
off the bridge, into their cars
and home, the deer wait
for dusk and walk gingerly
across the rocks to the shore
and the lake waits patiently
for its renewal
as the curtain of night
envelopes the scene.

OMEN

The air is crisp tonight.
The clouds gather
and stare down mournfully,
not intending to be ominous.
The do mean to portend rain
and they whisper on cool breath
"a change follows us
like a shadow you may
wish to avoid but cannot."
This, they say, is our gift;
this is the burden you must bear.
As the now cool sun retreats,
as the breeze shifts nightward
I write on the wind
with my finger - farewell -
and the summer sings me
her departure song.

THE FORTRESS

It is imposing, a modern
fortress, and once inside
it is bright, a lightness
that seems out of place.
The two armies intermingle
with a practiced trust that is
equal parts compassion and fear.
One is uniformed, easy to see
the other a ragtag band
who look into you deeply.
You mark them by
their head scarves, bandannas,
their armor against you eyes
and their battle ribbon,
but the story of their war
is revised daily as each
skirmish is fought.
You smile at them, they
back at you, but their eyes
say we let our guard down
only for those in our unit,
it's just the way things are.

Dx

As evening settles over you
the weight of the day
is sloughed off like a skin
that needs to be shed
for life to continue.
Today the fear of not
knowing was replaced
by the momentary joy
of learning the battle
has come to a draw.
In this war each loss
carries the threat
of final defeat, the one
prognosis she most fears
for that is the terminal
she dreads visiting.
Today there was a reprieve
and she will seize it
and march forward
into an unknowable future,
doubt following her
like a shadow.

DAWN

This morning the sun
is a red-orange bubble
slowly rising from
the bay, drawing light
onto the dawn sky
and slowly passing clouds.
The water of the harbor
is flowing neon and
in this moment the day
is all promise without portent.

A VISIT

The hours tick away,
the moment I board
the plane approaches
and i will be with her soon,
awaiting the results
of the latest scan
which will predict
her future, the need
to invent and invoke
a Plan C, that no one
wishes to consider yet.
She is eighty-four and time
without knowing weighs heavily
but is also the grail
we hope is not out of reach.

A MOMENT OF

The rain was uninvited

but arrived nonetheless

defying us to reject it.

It seemed not to care

and gently fell, not soaking

but simply caressing our faces.

They remind us that this day

recalls another,  ten

years gone, when

it was our tears,

and the ashes of towers

and lives that fell,

pooled in the streets, that

entwined with our innocence

and were washed off into history.

SYNERGY IS A FOUR YEAR OLD

The laws of physics
are inviolate, but
there remain things
that refuse explanation.
Synergy defies simple logic,
one plus one plus one
should not be more than three.
But the proof of that
is remarkably simple.
Take six four year olds,
each at maximum volume
let them run free
and the resultant sound
would easily drown out
the jetwash of a Boeing 747.
Q.E.D.

FADING SUMMER

Sitting outside the Tap and Mallet pub
she sipping prosecco,
I with a malbec that starts bold
and soon enough slides into adequacy,
as a breeze rustles the beer list
that runs five pages.
We sit enjoying an evening
which gently lingers
as does this summer,
both ready to slip away
but bidding us
a gentle farewell.

THE LESSON

She is four today
and can imagine a world
beyond our comprehension.
She cannot recall
two and a half lifetimes ago,
has no memory
of a morning of horror,
or near endless fear
that we set aside
in her smile.
She can mourn
a grandfather or a butterfly
yet all she truly knows
is to be peace.

CHOKA

The stream slows its flow

past the park bench, now unused

awaiting the first snowflakes.

            The trout swims downstream

            for the lake, where the water

            gently yields its fading warmth.

ANOTHER MORNING WALK

The day after yesterday
bears a strange resemblance
to this morning, rain threatening descent
but hanging back for no reason.
We walk through the park
often staring skyward at a sound
or its sudden lack, but the crows
weigh on the branches and ignore us.
Even they fall silent noticing
the red fox along the road's shoulder.
It is he who watches us carefully
assuming we portend rain, and so
he retreats beneath the canopy of trees.
The rain washes our route home.

TOOTHLESS BODHISATTVA

He will tell you

that the distance

between a tear

and a laugh

is the span

of a mother’s arm.

He knows the duration

of sadness is identical

to a shnork*.

He cannot understand

how you could

have forgotten  all this.

He doesn’t know

why you cannot recall

that enlightenment is

no more than a giggle.

  

*shnork (n.):  the sound of a grandfathers nose slowly approaching, then just touching that of his infant grandson.

THIS SIDE AND THAT SIDE

It is easy, you say
to tell which is in
side, which without.

You can walk
from here to there
and there to here,
but if you stop
at some point
along the way
can you see
where you are?
Let me make it simple.
I will hand you a brush,
now paint a line
across the ocean.
On which side
do you tread water?



           - after Shobogenzo 89

WOODEN PILLOW

鐵笛倒吹  六十

If, sitting at your meal

you hear the song of a bird,

what do you do?

You may tap your chopstick rest,

and perhaps he will answer

and repeat his sweet song.

If you tap a second time

and there is only silence

is the bird rejecting you

or offering his song to another,

or has it simply 

flown from your window.

Perhaps you should tap again

and hear the sweeter song

of silence that echoes

over the garden and zendo.

On a distant limb

the small songbird smiles.

                --  Iron Flute 60