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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

MYSTERY

 神秘

If the night sky

contains no moon

has the sun gone out?

It is like a garden

within a fence,

do the flowers

dream of freedom

or are we the prisoners

kept out from

the world within

their golden petals?

A strong wind

carries off the answer.