The Carriage Lamp

    A carriage lamp lit
   As the night comes down
   To hang upon the roofs.
   Then through the foggy streets of town,
   The sound of hoofs.

   He's come for me
   In a horse drawn coach
   As he has before.
   I watch the lantern's light approach
   And hasten to the door.


  "Come, my dear, and let us ride!
    The coach light leads us on;
    Through the night, sit by my side,
    Till break of dawn."

Rents

   Rents in the green drape of summer,

   Dead leaves below,

   One then two then four,

   Falling begins unnoted

   Until stiff winds bare trees.

   Sky is seen again

   Through rents in the clouds, 

   Sun, moon, stars!

***********

Southward

Moving south,

Sun shortens days,

Leaves place for he cool peace

Of night to take -

Plunging toward the equipoise of equinox,

Then deeper,

Rays only glancing treetops,

To the dark rest of solstice!

*************

Borders

The ends of days and seasons,

The hollow stillness when the songbirds roost

And the swifts and bats etch the empty twilight

With the magnificent, dark line drawings

That silhouette our joys -

The ends are what I have yearned after:

Of storybook days that pass unsensed,

Until shadow sweeps to the tops of trees,

And the sky becomes the border, unpatrolled,

Unending, of the black unknown.

*************

Four Horses

What did the madman say?

"Repent the end is near!"

Repent what? The end is here.

Too late now anyway.

What did the madman say?

"The white horse, then the red!

Pestilence and dread!"

What more then, pray?

"War and more, famine, death!

I see them, black and pale!"

Thus did the madman wail

With his last breath.

*****************

Tao

   The photons before they reach your eye -
   The still air before it ripples with sound -
   The tension of thought before you are conscious of it -
   Is not the Universal Mind your very own?

   Because it is your eye,
   You cannot see it -
   Because you ride the waves of sound,
   You cannot hear it -
   Because you never left it,
   You cannot enter it -
   You are still at home -
   Wake up!

*******

The Storm

The clouds grow dark

With rolls of thunder,

Monsoon time, no wonder,

The steamy air, the lightning spark,

The rain enraged, 

At war with heat,

While life encaged

In grim defeat,

Looks with hope to morning,

Innocent of the warning,

Tempest in the rolling thunder,

The future will pull all asunder!

**************

The Pond

   A breeze ruffles the glassy pond,
   Rocking leaf boats,
   Fragile ships with elfin crew,
   Sailing for the overflow
   And down into the rill
   That flows at times,
   Quenching the deer,
   Hatching frogs,
   Soaking into the boggy wetlands.

*************

By the Water

   A cottonwood whispers from over the pond.
   Bark lapped and scalloped 
   Like a Dutch barn,
   The persimmon rustles soft leaves
   As a north wind starts,
   Rippling the algae bloom at the shallow end.
   In the chill,
   Crickets try to carry on.

*********

Summer Moon

The half in a halo

As of cloudy egg white

Rides a clear dark sky

Between trees -

Look now or miss it!

The heavens in summer -

Falling Silent

The fury, the storm,

They rise and rise and then

Fall silent.

The music wafts

Through the house, and wafts, and then

Falls silent.

Our machines, so loved,

They spin and whir and sing, and then

Fall silent.

Silence is always the last word,

And that for always.

********************

Rain at Night

In the rain washed night

Drops of light are scattered on the air

To glow like fog.

The road shines clean

Throwing back the images

Of tree and fence and traveler,

Falling through the dark

As fast as rain.

Carving a tunnel with our lights

We speed to our end

As if we knew the way.

**************

Paradox

Age is beauty, death is joy.

The babe is soon to wither.

Struggle is peace, misery happy.

The silence full with noise.

Form is Empty.

Emptiness is not.

************

Ah,  Summer!

Pillow clouds parade

Across the sky,

Pillow sails across the bay,

Knifing the glassy water

Into spray,

Hilarity bobs, buoyed by the day!

**************

The Last Angel

The grand pin oak cossets a native holly in its bosom - 

Where two maple seeds fell together stands a doubletree -

High in the sycamores, two old hawk nests -

Aburst in morning song, a rainbow choir -

Cardinals and bluebirds, wrens and finches and sparrows -

Siberian iris were in bloom, deep passion of purple -

Then a flight of angels -

The first have faded, now the last -

One white angel stands alone 

On the day my brother died.

***************

Tao

   The photons before they reach your eye -

   The still air before it ripples with sound -

   The tension of thought before you are conscious of it -

   Is not the Universal Mind your very own?

   Because it is your eye,

   You cannot see it -

   Because you ride the waves of sound,

   You cannot hear it -

   Because you never left it,

   You cannot enter it -

   You are still at home -

   Wake up!

************

Who Are You?

I’m not who I was a moment ago.

Did anyone see where that person went?

What about who I was in years past,

Before my youth was spent?

I don’t really know who I am anymore,

But who do I need to be?

My hair short or long, my skin smooth or creased,

What should it matter to me?

My mother claimed she could find herself

With only a looking glass.

As good a way, I guess, as need be

To watch all my selves as they pass!

Growing Season

Within days

The filigree of limbs

Will be obscured by leaves,

A green canopy will hide the sky,

And on the forest floor

Moss will green,

Ferns unfurl their furry fiddleheads.

The long sultry season will insinuate

Within days.

The Drape

Behind a drape of new green leaves

Put up by deciduous trees,

The sky withdraws,

Like my mind obscured 

By nettlesome thought.

The sky is there unseen till fall

When the drape comes down;

Just as thought drifts across a clear mind,

The sun the moon have been there all along.

*******************

Merry Month

   Bees are buzzing -
   Birds are building -
   Buds are bursting into burgeoning blooms -

   Bumblers bumble 
   On the blowing blossoms -
   Raucous revelling resumes -

*************

Like Trees

   We die like trees,
   Rarely,
   Slowly, unless downed,
   Living through dormancy,
   Struggling through drought,
   Tolerating pests,
   Shriveling with disease,
   Limbs die, leaves wilt,
   We live on, suffering
   What should kill us, then
   Rarely,
   Slowly,
   We die
   Like trees.

***************

Even So

Even so, I come to you,

To be with you.

In rising floods, in fiery drought, 

Even so.

Desperate cries, songs of joy,

Even so, I hear you.

From childhood fears

To tears of age,

Even so, I am here with you.

Always was and always will be,

Even so.

- ASG

*************

April 

   Violets blooming on the first -
   April fools -
   Cherry blossoms swell and burst - 
   Rosy jewels -

   Breezes send
   Now warmth, now chill -
   The jonquils bend
   To April's will -

   Dogwoods too, while April rules,
   Do their parts -
   Violets, no shrinking fools,
   Purple hearts!

************

Like Snow

Palest pink on breezes slight,

Wafting in the sun’s warm light,

Blossoms of the cherry tree

Sing of spring to me and thee!

Like snow, they blow a gauzy squall,

Pallid petals gently fall.

In the cold March winds they pass,

Drifting on the new green grass. 

*************

Soft Spring

   Soft spring,
   Pale on the trees,
   Twilight's slanted glow
   Lingering on window panes.
   So came the end of days
   Long, long ago,
   Now memories,
   Pale and soft
   In spring.

*******

Kensho

Candle at my knees

Lights the overcast

Till sun breaks out 

Eclipsing rays

To warm my eyes.

Sounds of birds,

Dogs, planes,

Rise and fade, rise and fade. 

As I live and breathe,

I sit,

I breathe.

**********

Silence

   In silence -
   Buds swell and burst.
   Without a sound -
   Cells divide, limbs lengthen.
   Unnoticed - 
   A thought twines through my brain. 
   Unsung - 
   A song blooms in my mind.

   Listen -
   In the growing silence
   To all things that grow 
   And pass in silence.

*********

Coming Forth

   Forsythia whispers of yellow -
   The swollen redbud hears -
   Willow puts out a green fringe -
   Tathagata -

**********

Twigs

   Twigs lie strewn on the lawn,
   Skeletal hands grasping at ankles.
   From all angles a cold sun glares,
   Glancing blows of light
   Off blind eyes whipped by wind.
   Small and white, the crocus
   Braves March.

******

Egoless

   When I tire of listening, there is silence
   At a turn of the mind.
   While clocks go round and this
   May happen after that,
   When I tire of time,
   There is timelessness.
   And though the life and death of this and that
   Gets hold of me,
   When I tire of me,
   There is peace.

************

Meditation

   Hand of heaven on my head,

   Pulls the spine like a puppet string.

   Now I’m a buddha, so I’ve read.

   Posture is the thing.

   So aligned I can be as I am,

   Sitting still to follow my breath,

   The rise and fall of the diaphragm,

   Born on the rise, on the exhale - death.

   Duality encompassed in one.

   The paradox breaks my head.

   As I sit in the rising sun,

   Am I a buddha? So I’ve read!

************

Luna

   Round and full and white,
   Rising through the thick bare trees,
   The quiet of reflected light,
   Mother of pearl in glowing orbit,
   Some few arise to catch the sight,
   To those few subtle lunatics transfixed
   Bring peace, bring night!

*********

Humankind

   Queer, these creatures,

   Nonpareil in bloodiness,

   Natural bonds turned deviate,

   Deadly. What? What!

   This is your own!

   No wolf would do it.

   Queer, these creatures,

   Vacant of mercy,

   Predator ghouls

   Of human quarry.

   What, you do not bleed?

   This is you. Humankind. 

New Year

   The sun drips,

   Golden finger paint through trees,

   As our time slips through fingers.

   It is all about slipping,

   And falling

   Beneath the horizon,

   Beyond the threshold,

   Falling into night, slipping into light,

   Our fingers dripping with time.

*************

Prayer

   Crown of light,

   Wings of white,

   Angel, angel pray

   Light the dark

   With heaven's own spark.

   Guide my faltering way!

   Angel mine,

   Brightly shine

   On this darkling place.

   Wings of white,

   Through the night,

   Fast in your embrace!

************

Sun in Winter

   From august height,

   Old growth trees look down

   Upon the sun,

   White in the gray sky,

   Caught in a tangle of twigs

   Above a cataract of frost.

   Still, for all its trouble 

   With thick cloud and haughty trees,

   It swallows me with light.

***********

Eastern Window - Breakfast

   Blazing sunnyside up
   Through window panes
   Engulfed in eggwhite frost,
   The rising sun crows
   Cock-a-doodle to the day,
   Then slowly climbs the trees,
   Blessing feathers and fur with radiance
   Even in winter.

************

Angel Mine

   Crown of light,

   Wings of white,

   Angel, angel, pray

   Light the dark

   With heaven's spark!

   Guide my faltering way!

   Angel mine,

   Brightly shine

   On this darkling place.

   Wings of white

   Through the night,

   Fast in your embrace!

**********

Another Christmas

   Christmas full of jollity,
   Snow upon the holly tree,
   Friends and foes too much for me!
   Scrooge died anyway you see.

**********

Christmas

   Upon the emptiness of time,
   Upon the falling off of life
   Into the hollow spaces,
   Absent teeth, absent flesh,
   Absent love and hope,
   Upon the darkness gathering
   Faster and faster - 

   Christmas, alight and full,
   Casts a final glow,
   Catching the breath.
   Even the last.

**************

Russet

   Red as red could be

   Under the maple tree -

   Sunny yellow fades and dims

   Sallow on the empty limbs -

   Every color has given all 

   To the rich of russet, last of fall!

**************

Walk in Fog

   Sunrise through gauze -

   Water color trees -

   Red runs to yellow

   Then to russet -

   Bare arms of trees

   Made soft as wool -

   Pale grey on white.

   Sleeping hawks

   Open an eye -

   Who would walk in fog?

*************

Druid

   Trees disrobe,

   Strip to their naked colors,

   Distinguish themselves,

   A gaudy Turkey rug

   Over the forest,

   Never so red, never so yellow,

   Infinite blending of each.

   Gone the uniform of summer, 

   The green hijab,

    Now lining the road,

   A harlequin quilt,

   Soon laid bare,

   Stripped to the beautiful bones.

   Rest now, my lovely ones!

**********

Halloween

   It is a haunting, clearly,
   The dead coming to bother,
   Intruding on my mind.
   A haunting, but a sweet one,
   Tender, with  quiet strength
   Penetrating to the marrow,
   Then every muscle relaxes and I feel
   The arms of the dead around me,
   Coming to protect.

**********

Fall

   The leaves may be relied upon to fall,
   To shimmer, lit by the sun, dazzling with color,
   Then to fall,
   And a far street to be seen again,
   The lights of cars turning,
   The backs of houses.

   Now the trees laid bare may be relied upon
   To catch the moon in limbs
   And snare the setting sun,
   Extracting a trail of its golden yolk.

*************

October

   Reds made redder,
   Yellows, gold,
   The sky made bluer,
   Clear and cold.

   Clouds made pink
   At dusk and dawn,
   Dew made diamonds
   Spread on the lawn.

   Nights made longer
   For bats and ghouls,
   Grinning pumpkins,
   Snag-toothed fools.

   October flames out,
   The fire soon dead,
   But now its glow 
   Makes reds more red.

************

Rain

   The rain that taps upon the door
   Is more than fall, is more, is more,
   Coming so in soft September,
   Earlier than I remember.
   It is a turning in again
   Behind the dripping window pane,
   And glowing for a moment there,
   Fixed in a reflective stare.

**************

Bring Nothing ...

   Bring nothing to the chirp of crickets -

   No regret that summer's gone,

   No nostalgia for autumns past.

   Bring nothing to the antiphony of birdsong -

   No relish of its resonance,

   No recollections.

   Bring nothing to the lengthening darkness -

   No relief from the light,

   No fear of night.

   Bring nothing - to find yourself

   Integral.

*************

September

   As much if not 

   More than the ripening of apples and pumpkins,

   As much if not

   More than the chilly air, the yellows and reds

   Revealed resplendent, infinite shades

   In the leaves,

   It is the shadows of the leaves

   Dancing on the floor,

   A last dance

   Before the fall. 

*********

Stillness

   It goes quiet.
   Locusts quit,
   And crickets only magnify the stillness.
   Birds leave.
   Leaves fall through a spitting drizzle. 

   Wear grey today,
   And a lunar glow.
   Mother of pearl,
   Secondhand.
   Then a walk,
   Hand in hand with stillness.

*******

Do Not Think Good

   The owl sits perched in perfect equipoise,
   Draws one leg against his downy bosom,
   Closes his eyes,
   While the warm light of day dries his feathers.
   He knows it is good -
   Without thinking.

**********

August

   Summer mingles with fall -
   One takes the day, one the night.
   Locusts wane as crickets tune -
   Heated buzzing,
   Baleful intermittence.
   Hips of rugosa blaze to orange,
   Clashing with the last pink blooms -
   August dissonance.

*********

Cloudscape

   Over the blue of empty sky
   Billows of cloud floating by -
   One looks like a horse,
   No, a deer, of course!
   Only the clouds catch my eye.

   Look up at the heavens, what do you see?
   Why clouds, whatever else could be?
   When clouds have flown,
   The clear sky alone - 
   Empty and deep and free!

*************

Storm

   Thunder growls
   Slow, long, loud -
   Rain lashes the pane,
   Patters on
   Filling gutters,
   Ponds, buckets, barrels -
   Rising rills spill over sills,
   Flooding, floating all manner of things -
   Thunder growls,
   Rain lashes on,
   On, 
         on, 
               on, 
                     on,
   Till fish drown -

*********

The Way

   In having,
   There is loss.
   In losing,
   Joyous echoes.

   When the tide is high, 
   Sense its ebbing.
   When it recedes,
   Recall the fullness.

   To rise or to fall,
   To have or to lose.
   Abide in these unities
   Unperturbed.

***************

I Wane

   Unseen by others

   I wane,

   The sight of me fading, spectral,

   Mist on glass, then gone.

   Unheard by others

   A voice indistinct,

   A far off tree falling in the forest.

   Was that you?

   Unknown to others

   I wane,

   Becoming what I was and will be,

   One, unborn.

**********

Really

   Particles of light,
   Radiant and empty,
   Rush into my eye unfelt,
   But they are said to be real.
   Waves of vibrating air assault my ear, 
   Unseen though said to be real.
   Feeling the touch of wind,
   Incorporeal, empty,
   My mind sorts the radiant particles 
   Of sense beyond sense,
   Rejoicing to find:
   What is said to be real 
   Is so much more.

************

Crickets

   Crickets could be heard again
   No sooner had the solstice passed,
   Same sweet slow snore of fall
   Back to chirping.

   Locust jackhammers
   Drown the sound,
   But listen,
   Listen!
   Mellow crickets 
   Sawing summer away
   Now till past the equinox.

***********

Myriad

   Myriad as the sands of the Ganges,
   Karmic forms arise in the sangsara:
   The moon in all its phases, new and full and gibbous;
   The tangle of trees reaching for stars;
   Singular faces in the multitudes
   Of all those who are or have been or will be.

   Myriad the refractions of transcendent voidness,
   Pure and naked and untrammeled.
   Be one! Be one!

********

Lacrymosa

   Do not stand at my grave and weep,

   I am not there, I do not sleep.

   I am a thousand winds that blow,

   I am the softly falling snow.

   I am the gentle showers of rain,

   I am the fields of ripening grain, 

   I am in the morning hush,

   I am the graceful rush

   Of far off birds in circling flight,

   I am the star-shine of the night.

   I am in every flower that blooms,

   I am in still and empty rooms.

   I am the child who yearns to sing,

   I am in each lovely thing!

   Do not stand by my grave and cry,

   I am not there,

   I did not die.

                 

************

Edges

   At the edge of the day
   The light begins
   At the edge of the sky,
   A glow that spreads
   Along the edge
   And brightens into sun.
   At the far side 
   It drains away
   Over the edge of dark.

   Strange and beautiful
   The special margins!
   At the edge of life
   The light begins,
   At the far side
   It drains away
   Over the edge.

************

No More Words

   No word will do.
   No way to say this. 
   Chemicals sloshing
   In the bony skull
   Call up the joy,
   Then drain away.

   Not a word will do.
   Speaking to animals,
   Angels, inanimate objects,
   Imaginary things. 
   In the bony skull,
   Chemicals sloshing 
   Call up voices
   From garden beds where ashes settled,
   Seabeds under the funerary sloop,
   "We are here still."

   No more words.

**********

Natives

   Dogwood in white linen,

   Dressed against the chill.

   At her feet,

   Violets grip the earth

   And spread their fans,

   Hardly shrinking.

********

Practice

   Practice slipping into the void,
   The nothing all things end in,
   Where all the precious lies of life
   Fall away forever
   Like the tissue of flesh on bone,
   Then bare bone, then none.

   Practice slipping away
   Where all must go and have gone,
   Numberless as leaves
   Into the void.

   Practice now in time to see no time
   Before there is no time to see
   That nothing ends or begins here,
   Only falls away, and Nothing itself
   Holds one thing:
   Power that is never corrupted.
   Love that is not sentiment.
   And these - one.

**********

Dogwood

  Dogwood in sunlight - 

   Crinoline -

   Starched and flouncing.

   Dogwood in moonlight -

   A ghost -

   Silent and beneficent.

**********

April Again

   Too green, too pink,
   Too white, too blue -
   April, I'm talking to you!

   Too hot, too cold,
   Too young, too new -
   April, I'm speaking of you!

   Your vagaries, extreme,
   A treachery most cruel -
   Yet April, I remain your fool!

***********

Kensho

   Candle at my knees

   Lights the overcast

   Till sun breaks out

   Eclipsing rays

   To warm my eyes.

   Sounds of birds,

   Dogs, planes,

   Rise and fade, rise and fade.

   As I live and breathe, 

   I sit,

   I breathe.

***********

The Empty Corridor

   Through the trees,
   Their dark and arching canopy,
   Down the roads and trails,
   Between the rise and fall
   Of cricket drone,
  "Look for the Empty Corridor," he says,
  "And take the straight Path to me."

   Following the wind
   Into the deep cavern of my lungs,
   I find it.
  "Good child," he says,
  "Come quickly now!"
   Fearless and fast and straight,
   I fly to him.

***********

Revelations

   What did the madman say?
   "Repent! The end is near!"
    Repent what? The end is here.
    It's too late anyway.

   What did the madman say?
   "The white horse comes, the red, 
   Pestilence and dread!"
   What more then, pray?

   "War and more, famine, death!
   I see them, black and pale!"
   Thus did the madman wail
   With his final breath.

   (Causes and conditions,
   A tangled web,
   Ashes in the closet,
   Cold and dead.
   Who are you? Not who you seem?
   Not as you imagine,
   Nor even as you dream.)

*********

Swans

  The mute swan is not called upon
  To speak,
  But is prized for his beauty,
  Peace and grace;
  He grows very old
  Very quietly.

  Never called upon, he is mute about
  The black swan,
  Mythical, terrible, improbable;
  But the mute
  Never tells what he knows
  Unless called upon
  To speak.

*************

The Dance

   Just wait this time of year
   And all the brown earth will green up with grass,
   The hard, cold places will be hidden,
   Will remain invisible for months to come,
   As long hours of daylight crowd the edges of night,
   And the stillness is set a-buzzing.

   This time of year green is the truth and brown a lie,
   Or does a green lie conceal the brown truth?
   This time of year a wondrous growth,
   Warm and green, blooms on the beautiful brown earth,
   As light and dark spin an astronomical reel,
   One to the fore, then the other,
   In perfect time whatever time of year.

***************

March Linen

   The snow lies crumpled in a heap,
   What's left of it,
   A mere pillow slip that started out
   A great white rippling sheet
   Blown into billowy waves
   Across the lawn.

   Now the grass can green,
   The crocus bloom,
   The warming sun stay on
   To melt,
   To feed with light
   The cold and hungry things
   Lying crumpled.

**************

Who Are You?

"Who are you?"

  Who dares not to recognize

   His supreme imperial highness, 

   The Emperor of China?

  "Who are you?"

   I am I, said one.

   I am me, said another.

   I am he, she, they, said the myriad.

   Who are you?

  "I am all the pronouns.

   I take refuge in the mountain fastnesses.

   Do not seek me.

   I will come to you.

   Do you see?

   Look!"

************

Forest in Winter

   Naked trees stand close,

   Filter light that fades.

   Hoping for owls,

   One hears but one

   Distant dog.

   Cold sound,

   Cold night falls.

   Forest in winter!

************

Owl

   Sunset and moonrise,
   The bark of the fox -
   A howl goes up in the cold -
   Crepuscular owls,
   Resolute with hunger,
   Stir in skeletal trees -
   In a wink, a winnowing,
   Moonlit till sunrise -

********

Ice Bird

   Crystalline feathers 
   Frost the window in fractal harmony,
   Glistening with solar radiance,
   Slowly melting,
   Fallen from an ice bird,
   White as snow,  fragile as glass,
   Harbinger of this cruel cold,
   And yet so beautiful.

*********

Frost Bite

   Raucous geese fly over glistening frost.

   Through bitter cold, pure light

   Graces tall trees,

   Blesses all it sees.

   All is right,

   All is not lost,

   All is never lost!

********

Eastern Window. January.

   Frost forms a treeline,
   Branching on the upper sash,
   Below, the rising sun,
   Cyclops eye of a gleaming crystal skull,
   A Santa Muerte.
   Eastern window.
   January.
   Mornings. 

********

A Snow So Fine

   A snow so fine it seems a fog
   Hung in the dusky trees -
   Gray on black of night falling -
   Distant lights go on -
   Warm on cold of lonely silence -
   No, no, no, the barest whisper of snow
   Falling on crusted earth -
   A snow so fine.

***********

Winter

   No longer do the trees, aflame with color,
   Command attention;
   They are line drawings on the sky,
   Reflected glory.
   It is the emptiness of the air itself,
   For what it contains:
   The damp, the chill,
   The echoing bark of dogs;
   Catching us by the throat.
   We gasp for empty air.

**************

Snow...

   Soft on the lawn,
   Soft on the boughs and shrubs,
   Snow touches down,
   Slowly piling itself
   To solid white,
   Tint of purity,
   Shade of voidness,
   Calming the sky with a still descent 
   Into sleep.

*********

Wound Tight

   Wound tight as a spring,

   Teeth clenched,

   They know what comes. 

   Bouncing off others, repellent,

   Avoiding them like the plague,

   Exactly like the plague. 

   Now tight as wax,

   The cough, the aches, the fever,

   They know what comes.

   Before the end,

   Cloistered,

   They knew the end.

   Wound tight, they wait,

   The storm, the fire, the flood,

   The end is near, they said. 

   Over and over,

   Now over again,

   Poor Cassandra!

   No one ever listened.

**********

Sun in Winter

   From august height,

   Old growth trees look down

   Upon the sun,

   White in the gray sky,

   Caught in a tangle of twigs

   Above a cataract of frost.

   Still, for all its trouble 

   With thick cloud and haughty trees,

   It swallows me with light.

**********

Into Winter

   Only a fringe remains,
   Russet red, burnt orange.
   The trees prepare to sleep.
   Bare limbs stretch up,
   Branch out and down,
   Gracing the gray sky.

**********

Flocks

   A flock of birds blows across the sky - 
   A flock of leaves blows down
   A sunny blizzard -
   Revealing their true colors
   They skitter through the yard -
   Racing towards me in the wind -

*********

This November

   Joe Pye weed waves its amber flags,

   Marsh grass browns,

   Goldenrod blossoms,

   Every tree is bonneted with vine

   And algae blooms all over the place.

   Dogwoods reliably russet, 

   Maples struggle to show coral,

   Oaks and poplar give up dead leaves

   Standing bare too soon, 

   Autumn,

   No sun -

   Singing alone,

   The last cricket -

**********

Novembers Past

   The trees distinguish themselves
   Individually, showing their true colors:
   Red maple, yellow maple,
   Yellow edged in red,
   Copper beech, bronze oak,
   And the cherries, 
   Diaphanous on their borders.

   One day they declare themselves:
   Some deafening crimson,
   Some whispering coral,
   Some blending a dissonance of red and green.

   The maple was red one day,
   And on the next, the ground was red,
   The maple bare,
   A flimsy scaffold of anonymous twigs.

*********

My November Guest

   My sorrow, when she's here with me,
   Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
   Are beautiful as days can be;
   She loves the bare, the withered tree;
   She walks the sodden pasture lane.

   Her pleasure will not let me stay.
   She talks and I am fain to list: 
   She's glad the birds are gone away.
   She's glad her simple worsted gray
   Is silver now with clinging mist.

   The desolate, deserted trees,
   The faded earth, the heavy sky,
   The beauties she so truly sees,
   She thinks I have no eye for these,
   And vexes me for reason why.

   Not yesterday I learned to know
   The love of bare November days
   Before the coming of the snow,
   But it were vain to tell her so,
   And they are better for her praise.

                            - Robert Frost

*************

The Paradox

    Emptiness, form.
    Time, space.
    Energy, matter.
    Thought, action.
    Two sides
    Of that which has 
    No sides.

***********

Mu

   An emptiness awaits,
   A gaping singularity within
   That some ignore - deny the Devil,
   But the universe is light and dark,
   A simple binary code for all that is,
   So that one becomes two
   As two become one,
   And in emptiness, alone,
   Is everything, together.

***********

Bar Harbor

   A chill mist
   Off the bay unfurls,
   Juxtaposed on summer's heat.
   Orb weaver threads 
   All strung with pearls,
   And on the shore path, meadowsweet.

************

Borders

   The ends of days and seasons, 
   The hollow stillness when the songbirds roost
   And the swifts and bats etch the empty twilight
   With the magnificent dark line drawings
   That silhouette our joys.
   The ends are what I have yearned after:
   Of storybook days that pass unsensed,
   Until shadow sweeps to the tops of trees,
   And the sky becomes the border,
   Unpatrolled, unending,
   Of the black unknown.

**********

Fatigue

   In the stillness of a leftover heat,
   Everything is tired.
   The leaves have been up long enough
   To add another ring to the trunk.
   Exhausted birds have fledged their broods.
   Snoring crickets seem to bore themselves.
   Geese flock to the pond again
   To rest on the water together.

   Gather in the stillness,
   Store the heat,
   Tired by summer,
   Lie in wait for fall.

*********

Clairvoyance

   Flood tide rushes in
   Over the ebb,
   The future washing backward
   Over the present,
   And what will be comes suddenly clear,
   Uncomfortable knowledge,
   Pellucid and true,
   On the precipitate tide
   That overtakes time's ebb.

**********

Inertia

   Inert, inchoate,

   Sit and stare.

   Must do? not he!

   Do not dare.

   Too late. Too late.

   Would he might be

   What once he dreamed.

   Not that person, no,

   Nor as he seemed.

   Not he. Not he.

   Inert, brought low.

****************

Zen Mind

   When thought is gone,
   Consciousness gone,
   The Mind -
   Mist on glass,
   No "when,"
   No "gone."

**********

Quatrain

   Phantom figures, let them pass
   Through the mind's own space -
   Phantoms only, mist on glass,
   Leaving not a trace.

***********

Moon

   Full and white, rising,
   A pearl if you will,
   Glowing and rough,
   Snagged in the lace of limbs,
   Or in weaver's orb just at dusk,
   A cobweb frill.

   Rising, full and white,
   It climbs out,
   Pearl of oyster shell,
   To sail the black ocean of the night.

************

Summer Moon

   Peeking through the forest roof,
   Ghostly white, veiled in cloud,
   The gibbous moon 
   Lights the twinkling stars of night -
   Fireflies -
   Then hides in leafy curtains.

**********

Ah, Summer!

   Pillow clouds parade

   Across the sky,

   Pillow sails across the bay,

   Knifing the glassy water

   Into spray,

   Hilarity bobs, buoyed by the day.

***********

Cicadas

   Pretty red eyes, papery wings,

   The cicadas are surely such innocent things.

   For seventeen years they live underground,

   And when they emerge, their numbers astound.

   Drumming and flying, they have a short gig,

   To mate and then leave their eggs on a twig. 

   The babes burrow down, snuggling safe, the dears,

   Sucking on roots for seventeen years!

********* 

Mind

   This is your still mind
   Where thoughts pass
   Like images on a jumbotron 
   See the empty screen
   That must never be empty
   Reflecting waves of light, of sound
   Ups - downs - highs - lows
   Waves of duality
   Not immortal
   Timeless

*********

Nocturne

   Whisper of owls,

   Soft hoots and trills -

   Singing together

   Under the sills,

   As twilight comes on

   Or first break of dawn -

   Magical sound, barely heard -

   Soft as down, magical bird!

**************

The Drape

   Behind a drape of new green leaves  
   Put up by deciduous trees,
   The sky withdraws,
   Like my mind obscured
   By nettlesome thought.

   The sky is there unseen till fall,
   When the drape comes down;
   Just as thought drifts across a clear mind, 
   The sun, the moon have been there all along.

*************

Growing Season

   Within days
   The filigree of limbs
   Will be obscured by leaves;
   A green canopy will hide the sky,
   And on the forest floor
   Moss will green,
   Ferns unfurl their furry fiddle heads.
   The long sultry season will insinuate
   Within days.

**********

Twigs

   Twigs lie strewn on the lawn,
   Skeletal hands grasping at ankles.
   From all angles a cold sun glares,
   Glancing blows of light
   Off blind eyes whipped by wind.
   Small and white, the crocus
   Braves March.

******

Self

   One singular self -

   One with all -

   One withal -

*********

Witches

   The trees stoop under ice,
   Old hags with long white hair,
   Then comes the Druid robe of snow,
   Rustling the branches gently,
   Worshipful,
   While white witches of winter
   Sleep.

********

Revelation

   Every chance I get

   I reveal myself to you,

   Yourself to you, who struggle

   In the dark, the light,

   The cold, the heat,

   The wet, the dry,

   The boom and bust,

   The pain and pleasure -

   Only this - only this - only this - only this - only this -

   Look and see!

*************

Beautiful Snow

   Snow gathers.
   Through window shades of frost,
   The cherry tree
   And cardinals, a winter fruit.

   Snow gathers
   Through the winter,
   Paralyzing enterprise
   And intercourse
   With its dumb beauty,
   Its heedless, menacing beauty.

********

A New Coat

   In the muffled night of snow,
   Lights make soft shapes,
   Chimneys smoke from rounded roofs,
   Trees stand cold and still,
   Etching on fog,
   As about them gathers
   A new white coat.

**********

Last Word

   In silence, hearing remains;
   In utter darkness, there is sight;
   Without thought, the mind is conscious.
   Describing the Emptiness,
   Words fall into it,
   Helter-skelter over the last one - 
   Transcendent -

**********

Morning Walk

   Frost blazens brown leaves and grass blades,
   Mud is frozen,
   A waning moon rises with the sun,
   A wedge of geese flies
   Above a robin flock,
   Wind bites skin,
   But ears are keen for the scream
   Of the hawk. Morning walk. 

***********

Autumnal

   A fringe of shimmering leaves
   Catches the lukewarm light
   Glancing from a south setting sun -
   Exciting once, now
   A terrible pure sadness,
   The tinge of romance
   Distilled from it.

   The smell of a bonfire,
   Crickets falling asleep in the cold -
   Half hearted laughter
   Catches in the throat
   Of a soul long dead.

**********

Who Are You?

   I'm not who I was 

   A moment ago.

   Did anyone see where that person went?

   What about who I was in years past,

   Before my youth was spent?

   I don't really know

   Who I am anymore,

   But who do I need to be?

   My hair short or long, my skin smooth or creased,

   What should it matter to me?

   My mother claimed

   She could find herself

   With only a looking glass.

   As good a way, I guess, as any need be

   To watch all my selves as they pass.

**********

Vines

   Sinews of vine 
   From thick wood twine,
   Around, around, around, around -
   Lash themselves, tangled and bound,
   Taut and thick, 
   To fence and bush, to shingle and brick -
   Tendrils fell tall trees,
   Brought to their knees,
   Strangled by the serpentine
   Sinews of vine.

***********

Sun and Moon

   The moon

   Hides its first quarter

   Under cloud.

   The sun feigns lunacy.

*********

By the Pond

   A cottonwood whispers

   From over the pond.

   The persimmon, 

   Bark lapped and scalloped

   Like a Dutch barn,

   Rustles soft leaves

   As a north wind starts,

   Rippling the algae bloom

   At the shallow end.

   In the chill

   Crickets try to carry on.

*********

Summer Moon

   The half moon in a halo

   As of cloudy egg white

   Rides a clear dark sky

   Between trees - 

   Look now or miss it!

   The heavens in summer -

**********

Falling Silent

   The fury, the storm, 
   They rise and rise and then
   Fall silent.

   The music wafts
   Through the house, and wafts, and then
   Falls silent.

   Our machines, so loved, 
   They spin and whir and sing, and then
   Fall silent.

   Silence is always the last word,
   And that for always.

*********

Stripped

   The gilt is worn away,
   The gloss stripped - 
   Light is gone from days,
   And nothing shines - 
   Bleached granite,
   Worn down to the dull,
   The dark, the dead - 
   Breath stripped,
   Motion stopped, worn away,
   All bright things - 
   Even night holds
   No polish, no lustre
   Of star shine or moonglow -
   No remedy.

***********

Sparrow Song

   Just a chirp 
   From the immigrant house sparrow
   On the city streets -

   All day long hear the
   "Sweet, sweet, canada, canada, canada"
   Of the white-throated -

   Over fields 
   The prima donna song sparrow
   Performs its tripart 
   "Here, here, here! Trrrrrrrrr
   Cheerup, cheerup."

   Lowly sparrows all!

***********

Four Horses

   What did the madman say?
   "Repent! The end is near!"
   Repent what? The end is here.
   Too late now anyway.

   What did the madman say?
   "The white horse, then the red!
   Pestilence and dread!"
   What more then, pray?

   "War and more, famine, death!
   I see them, black and pale!"
   Thus did the madman wail
   With his last breath.

*********

Little Rabbit

   Clouds pass across the moon.
   The moon is still there.
   Can you stop the clouds?
   This mind is not Buddha.

   Little rabbit runs across the path.
   The fox sees.
   Can you stop the fox?
   This mind is Buddha.

   Stop running, little rabbit!

*********

Sangsara

   The eye sees the veil,
   Now light, now dark - 
   The tongue can taste it,
   The skin can feel it,
   The ear hears it rustle with wind - 
   The mind senses what is veiled -
   Intrinsic awareness.

*********

Thought Like Snow

   Thought
   Out of Nowhere, like the snow
   From an empty sky,
   Taking white shape everywhere,
   Forming its own still world awhile,
   Then sinking to earth.

***********

Still Point

   Below the surface of consciousness,
   A surging tidal wave of thought - 
   Breakers foaming and salty
   Startle the quiet mind, 
   Spin it round in random fury -
   Look deep, sailors, see it coming,
   Man the ship of mind!
   Hold fast to the still point -

**********

Flying to Portland

   Flecks of white far below,
   Wakes of boats
   Plowing the bays -
   Rivers catch the morning sun -
   Silver ribbons.
   Higher and higher,
   Plowing the clouds,
   Ears stop and pop
   Till we are above them.
   Snow white fields below us,
   And off there,
   Mountains or mist?

   Portland, northland,
   Not as far as I need go.

**********

Paradox

   Age is beauty; death is joy.
   The babe is soon to wither.
   Struggle is peace, misery happy,
   The silence full with noise.

   Form is Empty,
   Emptiness is not.

***********

Sky

   The sky I like has a few stray clouds adrift in it -
   Not vacant and bright, 
   Staring like the wide eye of an iced fish,
   Nor solid and gray, murky as congealed fat.

   The sky I like is the mind at rest
   With its vagrant thoughts -
   Not pure and blown of all distraction,
   Nor roiled in the snarling cloud of chaos.

   This mind is not Buddha.
   Either way, neither way,
   This mind is Buddha!

**********

Insincerity

   We can hide so long - 
   So long pretend the children are not wise,
   And ride the shimmering bubbles
   With our souls inside.
   What we had to pass on, we kept to ourselves.
   Now the children know everything
   But not what to make of it.

*************

Phantoms

   What are these phantoms,
   What must they be?
   Dropping from their mothers,
   Growing and dropping theirs,
   Degenerating, falling,
   Moldering on the ground,
   And so under?
   They cannot be what they believe,
   What they seem,
   And neither I.
   Evidence the ashes in the closet.

**********

Stark

   I am accustomed to stark
   Coming as youthful things
   Fall away one by one
   And stark loses its sting
   I only stare at it
   Numb to it
   Knowing it
   The stark truth of things
   Of being old with only old things
   Worn through and threadbare
   The skeleton showing starkly
   Of what we always were
   And how it is
   Numb to stark I stare
   Accustomed

**********

Monkey Mind

   Loosed from sleep,
   My mind swings monkey-like
   From limb to limb of thought,
   Setting up the chaos of day,
   Busy, exuberant.

   I watch bemused,
   Then catch myself.
   Who could I be watching me?

***********

Clouds of Thought

   White vapor, billows on the blue,
   Clouds make a picture on sky.
   Their shapes, their allure,
   No need to notice,
   Unless they congeal.
   Overcast demands attention.

   Whimsical thoughts,
   Their shape, their vigor,
   Make a story in the mind.
   No need to follow,
   Unless they congeal.
   Overcast commands gloom.

********

Seeing Glass

   Shadows cross and flicker,
   Faint reflections dance dimly, indistinct,
   Upon the glass, 
   Vapor thickens to fog -

   Keep watching the shadow dancers,
   Reflections on mist, on glass -
   Try to see glass -

***********

Phantom

   Shadow of yew branch
   On misted window -
   The rising sun perched atop -
   Star on a Christmas tree.

   The mist clears -
   The shadow unravels -
   A phantom only -

********

The Heron

   I saw the heron fly,
   Graceful, slow,
   Wings wide as the stream he crossed
   And long legs trailing.
   Sun caught the vision,
   God's eye upon us,
   While we dare not look back,
   Only wait for the grace,
   The vision of slow, wide wings,
   To see the heron fly.

*******

Walking in Snow

   It is beautiful of course,
   when it first comes down -
   quiet, soft, cold, beckoning.

   I walk out enchanted -
   well dressed of course -
   warm down, good gloves, hat, boots.

   Dusting the black trunks of trees,
   sprinkling a dark gray sky of solid cloud,
   it is beautiful of course -
   the feel of each step, 
   of ground against each foot,
   of snow caking the sole of each boot -
   slippery but beautiful.

*******

Frost

   Too cold to deal with frost,
   The sunlight ricochets,
   And a million brilliant crystals
   Veil the window.

   In this frozen place,
   Black of trees in silent snow,
   A million brilliant thoughts
   Veil my mind; 
   Too cold to deal with frost,
   What will I see when it melts?

**************

City Dusk

   The tiny sound of city birds
   Huddling on the warm gray chests of buildings,
   Making the cold a little less
   As the wind dies to let the sun slip,
   Dripping amber down the streets,
   Glinting off the windows - 
   The twilight convergence 
   Of all the helpless things that brave the day,
   The gathering, in the gathering of dark,
   Of the tremulous,
   In the tiny niches,
   To make warmth and music together.

***********   

Shore Path: Bar Harbor 

   One week a year, forty years or so,
   I have walked this path,
   Bay tides coming and going
   On the rocky shore,
   Gulls swooping for a shellfish breakfast
   Past the sweet sea roses.

   By the house with the fence 
   Of weathered board
   On tall stanchions built of ancient stone,
   There were trees overhanging,
   A leafy tunnel to frame
   The sky beyond.
   They slipped in sandy soil,
   And now the fence is falling.

   The old Astor cottage,
   Breakwater, is a fine Tudor place
   Named for the breakwater
   Which sits bayside of Egg Rock light.
   But J. J. Astor is gone,
   The rugosa roses tangled in weeds.
   The new owner wants no part of the path.


*********

At Break of Day...

   The morning tide receding, 
   I pass sea roses edging the shore -
   Only in fog do I see them
   Draped in the lace of the orb weavers,
   When droplets make visible 
   The delicate filaments
   Of this glistening garment,
   Which hung there all along -
   Unseen.

*********

Rain at Night

   In the rain washed night
   Drops of light are scattered on the air
   To glow like fog,
   The road shines clean
   Throwing back the images
   Of tree and fence and traveler,
   Falling through the dark
   As fast as rain.

   Carving a tunnel with our lights
   We speed to our end
   As if we knew the way.

*********

Composure

   However fast clouds
   Sail across the moon, the moon
   Moves at its own pace.

**********

Small Things

   Small things no one understands -
   Hands,
   Shades of thistle in the field.

   Small things no one seems to miss -
   A kiss,
   Shimmers of web across where the path has healed.

   Small things that men disdain - 
   Rain,
   The touch of eyes with nothing said.

   Dread,
   Where men love nothing at all,
   Loving the small.

*********

Recollection

   Into the well of years,
   Down and down through decades,
   Till at bottom, I am myself again,
   And free with a fearsome freedom,
   Even of joy.

**********

Interstices

   Slipping through the interstices of Reality
   From some dimension beyond the mind,
   A brilliancy streams
   Seen only by the conjurer
   Who has slipped through the interstices of thought.
   To him alone,
   Singular in the quiet,
   Comes the light
   From some dimension beyond time.

   How can we talk of such things
   As the quiet that slips between words?
   Where will we find the conjurer
   Who has slipped between the interstices?

   Standing, singular in the brilliancy,
   The light that slips
   Between stars.

**********

Water

   New leaves,
   Catching droplets,
   Rain them down,
   Sparkling to the ground!

***********

You Are the Leaf

   Sound gives form to the emptiness of hearing,
   Objects to sight,
   Thought to consciousness...

   You are the leaf,
   Not the tree!

**********


Mountain

   Climbing a mountain
   Of hope,
   Will I know the top
   If I reach the top?
  Will the view sweep down
   With a gasp of thin air,
   My heart soar up on the thermals?

   Hope is a summit never scaled,
   No cairn of stones to mark its peak.

   Yet still I climb.


*********

Sunrise

   Radiance breaks over eastern trees,
   Breaking window frost
   That runs slowly down,
   Glistening tears.

   Sun returns!

**************

Like Birds

   At the tops of bare trees,
   Birds or leaves,
   Last stragglers -
   A pair of them there
   Surely are mates, tiny,
   Swaying with the boughs
   In the wind -
   Or no, leaves, torn finally away,
   The last to fly off,
   Like birds -

****************

Breath/Fog

   Breath clouds
   In the fog,
   Cloud within cloud.

   Clouds of leaves
   Fall through it all,
   Patter on the ground.

   In the cold dawn
   Just clouds of breath,
   Cold as fog,
   Already gone.

**********

The Season

   Raindrops in my wine,
   Pockmarking the pond,
   Pattering on dry leaves.

   Raindrops in my wine,
   Hunters in their season,
   Gunfire from far fields,
   Baying hounds.

   Teardrops on the pond?
   No, no, just rain
   Just wine.

************

Bar Harbor Redux

   North winds, gale force -
   Whitecaps on the bay -
   Past the breakwater,
   Flashing red,
   Egg Rock light.

   Crickets fiddle gently - 
   No rasp of locust here -
   Heavy with hips, rugosa bows
   To a sea striped indigo and teal
   Under a rising moon
   Hung in mist.

*********

Bar Harbor 30+

   Morning sun scintillating
   Off the wind-whipped waves - 
   The monotony of tides,
   A very slow breath,
   In and out and in again -
   Water rises in a dream,
   A subtle threat -
   Then rising to find me,
   Morning sun scintillating.

**********

Kensho   

   Cardinal in the holly tree -
   Giant berry!

*******

Luna

   When it is new,
   It is gone.
   When it is half,
   It is quarter.
   When it is full,
   It is half.

**********

Rainbows

   The diamond and the dew,
   Bending waves of photons to spectral angles - 
   The hard and the soft,
   The geologic and the ephemeral,
   The valued and the valueless - 
   For all their difference
   Bend the same light
   Into the same rainbow arcs.

**********

Ruination

   Have we come to ruination, 
   Talking to cats, drawing the shades
   Before it's dark,
   Not knowing or caring what strange old music
   We have yet to hear?
   There is more danger than we care to know
   Accommodating the dark, the quiet,
   Danger of losing what was,
   What will never be,
   What will soon matter no more.
   Listen for strange old music,
   Listen to me, talking to cats.
   You want me here at no expense.
   I stay, and in the backyard
   I imagine someone coming
   From far away. 

********

Devil

   He's come again, that Devil, 
   So beautiful and fey,
   Disguised as my Archangel
   To take my soul away.

   It is a case so painful,
   Distinct in its degree,
   I know it can't be heaven
   Come in search of me.

   No, no, I recognize him
   And love him as before, 
   But now I know to take him in
   And slowly close the door.

***********

Moon-Faced Buddha

   Dark winds in the mind
   Carry off the ashes 
   Of this life's fondest joy...

   Peaceful in the grass
   As slow clouds proceeded by,
   Then the empty sky...

*******

Bedrock

   I lift you dripping, 
   Nettles falling off into the stream of thought,
   Press you close, 
   Folded in my wings.

   As thought courses on, child of mine,
   Close your eyes and stop your ears,
   Feel nothing but my strength,
   Lifting you dripping
   From the stream.

**********

Master Hsueh Tou

   I have no voice
     But the soundless voice.
   I have no words
     But the wordless words.
   I have no mind
     But the mindless mind.
   I have no self 
     But the selfless Self.

   Voice -
   Words -
   Mind -
   Self -
   Come to me for these 
   And you will leave
   Empty.

**********

Shades

   The uncertain light
   Wherein I grope among the pitfalls of this room,
   Holds no ghost.
   The sinking of shades into the one gray of night
   Is all. Slow, slow,
   Feeling for the wall,
   The boundary to be certain of.
   No spirit or spirit voice is here
   Yearning after me,
   Only the stealth of day gathering in
   The uncertain light.
   Only the puzzle of fear.

**********

Requiem for Methuselah

   Into the empty, twilight sky,
   Falling as if outward,
   Losing the grip of earth,
   Yielding the fast, the real,
   For a vastness starlit and terrible.

   Into the arms of illusion,
   Falling as if helpless,
   Turning in a slow waltz
   Through the dizzying vastness,
   Starlit and wonderful,
   Somehow, I fear too little
   Falling as if inward.

**********

Snowy Owl

   Into the boundless, empty sky I fall,
   Clean and naked, not resisting,
   Intimate with the air I breathe,
   The air rushing darkly
   Over wings I never had before,
   Wide and white and strong.

   Clean and naked, not resisting,
   Intimate with the boundless sky,
   I fly.

**********

Walks

   Shall I walk out at night
      To see the moon hung on limbs,
   Chance to sight the gleaming eyes
      Of  fox or deer,
   Set the neighbor dogs to bark in fear?

   Shall I walk out at break of day
      To see the sunlight glance the tops of trees,
   Greet the bluebird chortling as he swoops
      To snatch his breakfast from the lawn,
   Shall I walk out at dawn?

   Shall I know who walks with me
      When I walk out alone,
   Will I hear him in the whisper of the wind?
      His face, before me as I go,
   Will I know?

***********

Duly Noted

   The maples red, yellow, coral,
   The poplars nearly bare,
   The winter cherry in bloom,
   Counterpoint to ripe holly berries,
   All duly noted.

   Cricket snoring,
   Slower in the chill,
   The full moon, a Christmas ornament
   Hung upon limbs,
   All duly noted,
   Time and again.

   What else might be said?
   It is beautiful, it is real?
   Duly noted.
   But expose then an intimation
   You would rather not entertain.

   
*******

Maine

   Briny breath of sea,

   Din of waves;

   Jewels of dew upon the rose,

   Tidal caves;

   A fog that gives the softest kiss,

   We come for this.

   A forest path through silver birch,

   Straight and long;

   Sunlight on a northern pond,

   Warbler song;

   We come for this, the cool sweet rain,

   We come again,

   Again. 

*************

Free Will

   Such choices as we make
   We make without a choice
   But as a river chooses its bed,
   We course to one end by way of our nature,
   Despite what agonies of stone we must by way erode.

   Inscrutable in the large eyes of a child's fear
   The irresistible future,
   And in the wide eyes of death, the blind struggle past,
   That vision again, remembered.

   Such choices as we thought to make
   Have but impelled us, resistant in our fear,
   Without a choice.

***********

Strange Cries

   Strange cries,
   Pleading, inarticulate,
   Implacable,
   Hours before dawn.

   Strange cries,
   Human, animal,
   Beyond remedy,
   Hours on end,
   Ending sleep.

   Strange cries
   Underscore the curse of sentience,
    Nothing to answer
   To the wordless plea
   But to lie awake
   Hours before dawn.

**********

Be Still

   Be still and know me,
   As I know you
   In the stillness of your mind.

   My love is the sun
   Lighting the tops of trees,
   The pure wind
   Rushing into your lungs,
   The sweet warmth
   Rising from your candle.

   It is a deep well for you.
   Be still and drink.

**********

Hearing Birds

   A bird is in the hedge, chirping,
   Though I do not see him.
   My ear follows his whereabouts.
   Even when he stops chirping,
   He is still there in the hedge;
   And when he dies,
   He is still there,
   In the hedge, chirping. 


***********

Guardian   

   When this wicked world confounds you,
   Precious child, my love surrounds you.

   When troublous, nagging thoughts invade you,
   My wisdom will pervade you.

   And when some devil taunts and scolds you,
   Know, my strength upholds you.

   Who am I, where can I be?
   Dear one, look in your own mind for me!


***********

Blessing

   My precious child, receive from me
   The blessing of the Bodhi Tree,
   And in that space where wisdom grew,
   The softest kiss, my love for you.                           
                                                         A. S. G.

********

Meditation

   If you listen to yourself talk,
   You can't hear yourself think.
   If you listen to yourself think,
   You can't hear your Self.

**********

Singled Out

   Sun singles out the birch,
   Untoward already; in tree hands,
   Birds dance that have taken eons
   Learning to match the yellowness, 
   To seem as leaves
   In the mind's eye.

   But the sun singles them out -
   The birds and the birch -
   With neither mind nor eye.

***********

Bending

   New leaves,
   Like baby hands,
   Unfurl from wet limbs,
   But the birch still leans,
   Bent by winter ice,
   And the redbud curves in the sway of the locust tree,
   Where it will yield still
   When the locust is gone.

*******

Daybreak

   Now the sun breaks the arc of earth,
   The edge that is no edge.
   A dawn bird breaks the stillness,
   A chrysalis breaks into being.

   No birth -
   No life -
   No death -
   No resurrection - 
   Passage!

************

Ancient Warnings

   Unless we have learned to leave our bodies,
   Before our four elements separate,
   We will die like crabs,
   Tossed alive into the boiling pot - 
   So say the ancient masters,
   Their words now but valley mist
   Haunting the far hills of China,
   Hanging on the day,
   Whispering through awful nights,
   Dread warnings - 
   Alive!
   Awake!

********

Facebook

   The carousel card:

   Uncheck the Add a card 
   at the end of your page profile picture box 
   in the Images and Links section 
   of ad creation or 
   Power Editor Ads Manager
  "Hello? Hello? Earth to Facebook.
   Earth to Facebook.
   Is this English?"


***********

Blizzard

  Darkness and snow
    Falling together into a place 
     Where only the dead remain,
        Reluctant and sad,
          Alluring in the elegance of memory.

   Darkness and snow
     Falling together into a fairy tale place
       Where crystalline beauty smothers,
            And numb fear is oddly beckoning.

***********

Snow Day

   Racing down,

   Fat flakes of snow

   Gather on gray ice.

   The pond turns white,

   A flat medallion

   Laid in the rolling field.

   Mouth open wide,

   I race into the squall

   Gathering fat flakes,

   Snow on my tongue!

*************

A Soft Place

   Let me set you down
   In a soft place, my love,
   Where air is sweet
   And warm in silent sun,
   My sentinels aloft in it,
   Broad wings and strong!

   Softly, let me set you down, child,
   Sweet as air
   And light as silent sun,
   Under my wings,
   Broad and strong,
   A soft place
   There to love you!

**********

Time and Again

   On and on, an endless cycle.
   But wait,
   Is this your first time?
   Then you don't know.
   On and on, generation, generation,
   Generation of life,
   Begetting birth, death,
   On and on.
   Wait, your first time you say?
   Then know, 
   Endless is the feel of 
   When???????
   Timeless, the feel of Now!

************

Summer's End

   Spider gems in the fog,
   Draping the fir.
   Late blooms of rugosa rose
   Amid the hips.
   Tides like breath,
   Rising, falling.
   The gulls.
   The cormorants.
   The guillemots.
   Summers, like the ferry, 
   Coming, going.
   Coming.
   Going.

*******

Breath

   Breath, like waves,
   Breaking and sucking back
   To form another wave,
   Breaking on the packed sand of thought.

   Breath will stop sucking this shore
   In time, after canyons have been worn
   And worn away,
   But even then the waves will go on
   Breaking. 

*************

Shore Path - Bar Harbor

   Over the cold bay water,
   Fog rolls white as wool -
   Over rugosa hedges,
   Glistening webs of lace -

   A frothing tide rolls over rocks,
   Rattling shells, rousting gulls -
   Cold bay water rolls into foam,
   Wooly white, lacy soft -

   Sink into the timeless radiance!

***********

Don't Answer

   Imagine a lover,
   a child, a dog, a white picket fence -
   "Row row row your boat..."
   Imagine that job, making a name, fame,
   Peaceful Deities -
   "Gently down the stream..."

   Imagine a blood clot, making its way -
   "Merrily merrily merrily merrily..."
   Imagine the ICU,
   carcinoma blocking the gut, the lung, the kidney,
   Wrathful Deities -
   "Life is but a dream..."
   Imagine blacking out a final time -
   Then what?
   Then what was real?

   Don't answer until you are sure...

***********

Saturday

   The day for chores,
   cleaning, laundry, errands,
   the weekend headache,
   smells of bacon and coffee,
   blueberry pancakes -
   Pop's specialty.
   Then the day to learn that life isn't fun, 
   but duty, labor, tedium.
   And now, after the bakery, coffee, a pastry -
   errands, chores, duty, labor, tedium.

   The cat is sixteen.
   She needs thyroid meds twice a day.
   She is too fat to groom herself.
   The expression on her face tells me
   she agrees with everything I just said.

***************

Blue Cliff Record

   I am the sky that catches you

   When you fall into it,

   My sentinels, the raptors, 

   High and silent -

   The sun that finds you out,

   Bursting your brain with light,

   My vanguard, the trees,

   Tall and silent.

   I am the Mind that pierces your shell

   And swallows its contents,

   Leaving you bare and untrammeled - 

   The sword that kills and gives life,

   A blown-hair sword,

   Holding you harmless on its edge.

***************

Masters Rinzai and Hoshin

   In the eye it is called sight,
   In the ear it is called sound,
   In the nose it smells,
   In the mouth it tastes,
   In the brain it thinks.

   I came from brilliancy,
   I return to brilliancy -
   What is this?

**************

A Carriage Lamp

   A small pin, goldtone,
   a carriage lamp 
   with faceted glass 
   that throws back whatever light hits it.
  "What a beautiful brooch!" the youngsters say
   when I wear it on my lapel. They cannot be expected to know
   that a brooch is something else, large, heavy, garish, 
   a thing they themselves would never wear.
   A brooch? No.
   Just a pin, a carriage lamp, lit
   by whatever light hits it.

*********

I am as a candle...

   I am as a candle to your sun,
   Humbled, eclipsed,
   Lost in the yellow flood that breaks the day
   And sets the window shimmering...

   "My candle then, precious one,
   As bright to me as a rising sun.
   My candle, child, it is no shame,
   Neither wax nor wick though,
   Be the flame!"


***********

Sunrise. Airport.

   There it was then,
   Early, the sun
   Finding me out
   Through a great wall of window,
   Clear light and pure.

   Filters of thought 
   Might turn it to the red of anger,
   Cold blue of fear.

   But no, in this pellucid place,
   Upon a limpid mind,
   Only the dove white of peace,
   Gold of joy,
   Together bathing me 
   In perfect clarity!


**********

The Charmer

   A stare that seeks not just to bore
   But pin the deadly viper
   Immobile, 
   Hold at bay its dread magic, 
   A stare to the death, a would-be
   Unblinking forcefield, beaming only
   Its own frail desperation.
   With such a stare has he wooed
   The fearsome, a snake charmer
   Toying with death his lifelong,
   Courting the sinuous beauty,
   Mythic and treacherous...

   A stare that seeks not just mercy
   But dominion of the merciless,
   A useless, impotent stare.
   A pitiful blind
   To hide from a terrible prey.
   With such a stare has he fled
   What he cannot see,
   Stalking behind his own empty eyes
   The imaginary, the despised.

   When the viper shed her skin
   She was a thin helpless girl,
   Mother of thin helpless girls,
   All mystified by the stare
   That skewered them while seeming to lure,
   Mystified by the treachery of which they were both accused 
   And victim.

   "Blind. Blind. In the darkness I find my rage
   At a young tender age. 
   With my unseeing eyes
   I must pierce as it lies
   The cold heart that keeps this cage."

   When the viper shed her skin,
   She was a drab, formless thing,
   Clinging to the drab and formless,
   While all around her lay the odd crisp skins
   Of others gone before,
   Twisted, cold, and soon to crumble
   In dust ...

   "Blind Blind. In the darkness I find my mother
   Disguised as another.
   Though her unseemly chill
   Has frozen my will,
   I hold her as my hope, and no other."

   When the last viper finally shed her skin,
   She was a feeble old woman,
   Drawn into the confines of depredation,
   Coiled limply in the gathering shade,
   Alone, afraid.

   Then from the shape of her eye it was clear
   She was no viper at all.

*********


Vanishing...

   You are not alone...
   You are not...
   You are...
   You...
    ...

*********

Enough!

   Once again the snow comes falling.
   In spite of the month, spring is stalling.
   I can't always write
   About things turning white,
   By April its just too appalling!

********

Two Haiku

   Moon in daytime sky -
   Pale and round and almost missed -
   Pearl on blanket-blue -
              ~~~~

   Proclaiming his watch -
   At once doleful and baleful -
   The cry of the hawk -

**********

Unseasonal

   A sudden snow, wet, out of season,
   Cotton blanket on the thrusting bulbs,
   Tulip, narcissus, and the greening hedges.
   Then the air turns soft and still as held breath,
   The sun warm and early,
   The snow a-melt in the gutters.

   Stirring to life, shaking our blankets,
   We seem to start around again,
   Blossoms on the holly, green berries, then red.
   But no. No turning.
   This sudden snow was never here before,
   And those who sleep beneath it never left.
   Neither a circle nor a line,
   One-pointed Mind.

***********

For Me?  

   Is it for me
   The color on clouds
   Ringing the horizon
   Just after sunset?
   The glory of dawn,
   The sun rousing itself again?

    Is it for me
   The downy blanket of snow?
    The moon in the bare limbs
   Of poplar trees?
   Who am I
   To receive such soft things?

   Who do I need to be
   To notice the soft blessings?


**********

Body and Mind

   Your body is the form
   Of which your mind is the emptiness -
   Your mind is the emptiness
   Of which your body is the form -
   These are the inseparable paradox 
   Of the Self that you perceive,
   Encompassed in the greater paradox:
   The Ultimate Reality of the transcendent Singularity.

***********

January

   A sudden sun wails across the ice
   That chatters down now in the thaw.
   The birch tree,
   Bowed to the ground for days,
   Never groaning, never breaking,
   Rises silently.

   To bear the frozen stillness,
   Be the frozen stillness.


Walk Across the Snow

   Walk across the snow,
   Light and dry and flying
   With each step.
   Walk back in time
   To hills and sleighs,
   An oddly hungry time,
   Hunger for someone who never came.

   Walk across the snow
   Toward the sun that falls to meet you,
   Throwing shadows of the trees
   On golden trails.
   Walk back in time,
   Burrowed in recesses of cold concrete,
   Where the soft chatter of tiny birds
   Tore love from you,
   Each little bird filling a hunger
   For something you would never have.

   Light and dry and flying,
   Walk back
   Across the snow.

*********

Blessings

   You have hearing
   That I may bless you with sound -
   You have vision
   That I may bless you with light -
   You have feeling
   That you may know the touch of my love -
   Bring my blessings together
   In one mind
   That I may bless you with consciousness - 
   You will see then
   And hear and feel and know
   The One Bliss -

*******

Joy

   Keep your joy close
   And deep within yourself,
   Cosset it.
   Let no one kill it,
   Let no one spoil it,
   Let no one see it,
   And it will be there always,
   Come what may.

*******

Nova Scotia

   In the swirling seas at Middle Head,
   The fog at Peggy's Cove,
   On the peppery fields by Cheticamp,
   Where whales school in the Gulf
   And the hills are somber in the sun,
   Where shanties are refined by the western glow,
   And a spire rises darkly over a strand of stars,
   On the beach at Ingonish,
   Heaped with rocks round as eggs,
   Where the rising moon rolled
   Ribbon over the sea,
   I would be free of me here,
   Free to be.

**********

Bar Harbor x 13

   The sun cupped in hand,
   Lips cupped in the rose - 
   Rugged rugosa -
   Kisses every one before she goes.

   Tides fall and rise,
   The ferry returns when it must,
   A moving jewel - 
   Cupped in moon dust.

********

Tattoo

   Over Halifax and night falling,
   The soldier in the blackwatch tartan
   Piping, and I, swelling with the pipes.
   Will I be here again
   Someday alone remembering?
   Or am I even now remembering,
   Anticipating time,
   Anticipating night?

   The piper watches me
   Watching him on the hill
   Over Halifax,
   Knowing how I find him,
   Knowing when night falls
   I will never find him again.

***********

Falling

   I came upon a certain time
   When all the old things fell away
   Leaving me in an open place,
   Exposed to freedom,
   Hung with fear.

   I turned to see who came for me
   At a certain time, in an open place,
   When suddenly I was falling away
   From time, through space,
   From all the old things
   Hung with death,
   Exposed to dread.

   And then there he was...
   That certain face...
   Come again...
   For me...


********

Never Use an Infinitive in a Poem

   To hear is to perceive sound -
   But I listen to silence.
   To see is to perceive light -
   But I look at darkness.
   Sound and light are but distortions
   On the face of awareness.


**********

Past Grief

   A day like his last,
   Air as clear as glass,
   Cool against the face,
    Like stone.

   Time stays, while the Mind goes
   Leapfrogging
   In air thin as breath - 
   His last.

   Here's the funny thing:
   A song for us to sing
   To pass the time that doesn't pass,
   The time of death under glass.


*************

New Year

   The sun drips,
   Golden finger paint through trees,
   As our time slips through fingers,
   Nines to zeroes.
   It is all about slipping,
   And falling
   Beneath the horizon,
   Beyond the threshold,
   Falling into night, slipping into light,
   Our fingers dripping with time,
   Nines
                then
                             zeroes.

************