Through Closed Eyes
There is a clearing in the trees.
Sometimes l like to sit here,
when it isn’t hot,
and suck up the warmth,
looking up at the sun
through closed eyes.
But most of the time
I like walking the paths
through the trees
where the sun can only be seen
in reflection on the ground
between the shadows.
Life lurks in those shadows
where the overnight moisture
can linger and nourish.
Mushrooms, blackberries, and pears
all do splendidly well when
out of the direct domain of sun.
The dark forest is quiet but suggests
the presence of deer, coyote
or even a bear; peaceful, but
suggestive of danger, with eyes
looking from behind trees,
steps disguised in the rustle of leaves.
Perhaps this is my holiest of places,
where my ancestral memory
reminds me of hunting and gathering
and the places we’ve been,
from fragments of the universe
we spin, we spin, we spin.
Buddha Laughing
You seek, Nothing.
Yet, Nothing seeks you.
He’s right around the corner,
with slightly parted eyes,
a faint smile, a sharp shining,
illuminating, blade,
honed for transformation,
tucked inside his robes.
Belly laughing Buddha,
puts a knife to your throat.
You bleed, into everything else,
until you can’t tell, the Buddha,
from yourself.
Beyond What I See
Beyond what I see,
is perfection, harmony.
Through broken glass,
fragment and shard,
scraped knee, misery.
A mushroom or medusa?
I can’t discern. Only by
movement, memory burns,
I seek only for things
that wiggle and squirm.
While minds wander
from causes to policy,
the intellectual’s qualm.
We navigate to the familiar
singing the same old song.
For a moment it is clear,
then I lose sight.
A mosaic of glass, distorts
what is right, metamorphosis,
births what is wrong.
Good intentions, learned from books,
have their own direction,
wicked and crooked. But what
of bad intentions? Heads
twist for another look.
I’m in a field of adversaries,
yet I don’t see my enemy.
Could they be hiding amidst
anticipations throng, ready to
pounce on indecisive pawn.
Choose a side damn it, so
I have so I am instructed,
by antagonists from both sides.
On each side of the window
The grass has died.
Must I decide, flee, or fight,
to knife or be knifed?
To accept inevitable mortality
like when atoms collide?
The anxiety of anticipation has arrived!
I have broken through this glass for
which you so proudly fight. I refuse
to bind with these thoughts contrived.
I choose life in its better light.
The hope of anticipation has arrived.
Becoming the Old Man
From Death Mask
The Pacific Ocean
suddenly becomes
Monterey Bay,
as water flows
precariously
across boundaries
of our choosing.
Should I have stared at the waves,
and looked for some sign
Of this transition?
An iris
suddenly becomes
rubbish for the basket,
somehow crossing
over the line
from stunning
to withered.
Should I have stared at it,
and waited for it
to lose its beauty?
I have watched myself
over the years,
and never once
did I see myself change.
Yet now I stand,
sagging and grey.
Rubbish for the basket.
Content with that.
Mulch for a new life.
