Listen, when silence comes.
See shadows move
through darkness.
Cold and winter breaths
still, wreathe round
small birds in tangled branches
above stones on a path.
Portland, Oregon – November 12, 2019
Mindfulness
An Essential Self
There is a bridge over a wild river
where, to go, is to go into another land –
a forgotten self, uncharted, unknown,
unbidden, hidden in roiling swollen waters –
one’s being in its turbulent depths.
I hesitate – one step forward, two back –
keen to save my life from falling headlong
into the swirling and raging waters of life
where have gone before me
wandering saints, itinerant holy ones
huddling in hermitages, fasting in deserts,
drowning in baptismal waters of life.
They may live in silent rooms, spending days
with lost souls of a city, searching
highways, twisting byways to find
ones who are lost in riches or grief.
They sweep floors, stop to look in the mirror
to find their own obscure and hidden lives
lost in the shadows of deep and abiding love
unbounded by fear for who come their way.
When I was young I set on the path before me
fearsome creatures made of darkness,
saying, believing, lost in loneliness:
“I cannot cross over.
They will not let me pass unscathed.”
Will age, my growing older, give me courage
to step on the bridge, look below me
into the chaos of what has gone by
and what is still to come and say
“I wish to know, after all, what I look like
and who I am from the other side.”
Portland, Oregon – August 28, 2018
Photo is my own, taken August 2018, of a hikers bridge over a tributary of the White River, Ti’Swak (AKA, Mt. Rainier) National park.
Continuous Awareness
“It is not easy to live in that continuous awareness of things which alone is true living.” (Joseph Wood Krutch, The Desert Year.)
Not sunshine on ice snow brilliance
curve of bird flight
light shimmer on water.
This –
Darkness in winter’s night
lost stars in evergreen tangle.
Now –
Evidence of things seen
under incandescent light.
What was, is, will be –
glory of the given world
resplendent light of ages
tender repose of our ancestors.
Portland, Oregon – January 23, 2017
Stop
High-wire act of living
each day tottering
on a precipice and long fall –
miscalculations, small mistakes
and it all breaks
into a Humpty-Dumpty mess.
Stop
There is no high-wire.
A path winds through a field
of flowing grasses to each horizon
sunrise, long arc of day
sunset over the field
night begins again.
Calm
Forget many things about life
the wreckage of dreams
the delusion of anger.
Practice seeing movement
listen for all the whispers
between the quiet spaces.
Rest
What is there that has not been?
Celestial spirals in shades of light
shadows of darkness
holds you, moves with you
circling slow around the still point.
Portland, Oregon – October 15, 2016
Ch. 6 of Thich Nhat Hanh’s, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. He writes of three aspects of “Shamatha” – stopping: Stopping, calming, resting. “If we cannot stop, we cannot have insight.”
Eyes Unclouded By Longing
Searching for words
to express the delusion
of longing – its promise
and long fall into sadness
as the sun lowers
behind a house and a fence
as a spider clings to a web
on the window above a shelf
on which resides Maxwell’s
“On Poetry.”
Yet! Here are words, now
in awakening present!
Not longing fulfilled
but me in lamplight
with the darkening sky
and the spider who moves
with the breeze flowing
through the open summer window.
Portland, Oregon – August 23, 2016
Title is from the Tao Te Ching, #1, translation by the Rev. Dr. Raymond B. Blakney, 1955.
The Good
Small birds converge on the fountain’s edge
as bees do, as does my gaze.
In the morning I filled the fountain
for my own pleasure – its gurgling
sound, reflection of sunlight in shimmer
of water over pouring.
The bees and the birds too
find their own pleasure there –
I in them, we together
drinking of light, refreshment
cascading, dripping life.
I did not change the world
today, make my presence known;
did not seek the fullness of good,
find its summit or its source.
I filled the fountain to its brim
stepped back, sat down and,
since it was what I could do, watched
the everlasting procession-
birds and bees, creation ceaseless
pouring as water over the rim.
Portland, Oregon – July 26, 2016
The Bug
We listen to classical music
the bug and I
sharing this space, cold, light,
concerto sound.
Holding fast to a clamp’s screw
a Bodhi sacred ground
hours in serene stillness
undeterred by close breathing
resting quietly.
Waiting
Still
Awake
Alive as I
Portland, Oregon – Vernal Equinox, March 20, 2016
Morning Bowl of Surreal
White, round, deep
with spoon.
Poured milk
flakes from fields
cane sugar
blueberries.
One mouthful at a time
breathe in – out.
Once more.
The day has begun
with rain.
The bowl never empties.
The day pours in
filling it to the rim
over again and over
until it spills
with light and dark
splashes on the countertop.
The abundance
cannot be stopped
or spent.
I need another bowl.
Portland, Oregon – March 6, 2016
Animal Shadows
I saw my own shadow today, briefly
in the pale, drear, moss encrusted northwest green.
It did not seem to care about winter or spring
or even that I cast it lightly.
It seemed careful, I suppose,
only for the ground over which it passed.
I was concerned about many other things.
Portland, Oregon – Groundhog Day, February 2, 2016
Monday Evening
Each day
fails to be the day I desired –
perfectly conceived
executed mindfully
ending in bliss.
I forget, each day,
the holy,
the veil,
the wall,
the green life
that buds,
flowers,
blows in the wind,
withers,
crumples,
rots,
begins again.
Portland, Oregon – January 2016
In Cascadia 