conversation

running across a blue evening
between trees and her apartment building
on dry grass
a lone sparrow singing
a twilight song

happy like fear and freedom
like a deer in the wind

our conversation changed everything

two visitors this weekend

1.

seeing you again
after so long
what can i write about that?

the day was cold in the morning
and then sunny in the afternoon
i was outside all day
in the rustling woods in the pale morning
on the dry grass in the mid day sunshine
in the sun and shadow of the patio
near the day's ending

i wondered if i would become sick
from exposure
from the light on things hidden during the winter
but i was only tired
by the time of evening dimness

How I wish, how I wish you were here

march 25 2010 will only happen one time that i know of

dog's bum wiggling a little with every step

girl watching a red wing blackbird

sparrow catching several twigs in his beak for a nest

my eyes caught today in brief suchness

conversation with a elderly resident this evening at work

I liked your painting of sunflowers!

Thank you!

Do you draw too?

Yes, I drew the outline
and then I painted it.

Additionally, I planted the seeds
and grew the flowers! So I made all of it.

Ah, a shared creative effort between
you and God!

Mirror Smile. Four eyes crinkle.

last night's dreaming

1.
an eccentric woman gives my sister and i
a series of questions. she says we must

lock ourselves in a a 7 inch high box the
width and length of our bodies, and

stay in until we answer the questions
after which there will be some element

of reward. i prepare nervously with
my sister, and worry that this will

take time away from important
work assignments. we take a train in

to a station where we find the boxes
as well as my parents, both of them,

there to encourage us.

there are other students of these
questions preparing themselves too -

it's a competition, and the questions
are koans, about pop musicians.

2.

immediately i freak out

with anxiety. aware that this is a competition
and time is an element, and wanting to get

back to work, and noticing that another
student finishes within moments

i begin to cry. a teacher comes to help me
but i can't stop crying, frantically,

self-indulgently, excessively. others
are being assisted. i reject assistance.

i scream despairingly "that first student
was asian - unfair advantage!" knowing

with those words i'm swinging my angry
fists blindly in the dark.

i know the only road to an answer is
release of the body, and time in the box, and

the end of measuring that time. and i know
that i can do this, so certainly that it isn't

even a question. but these people, this
tension, this energy, this competition

it freezes me, brings me to frenzy,
bring me to self-indulgent tears.

3.

i wake up a little, and the more i wake up,
the more i know i need to let my body

naturally follow its course of forgetting
time, and sleeping in.

The origin of standards

Calamus

In Paths Untrodden

In paths untrodden,
In the growth by margins of pond-waters,
Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,
From all the standards hitherto publish'd, from the pleasures,
profits, conformities
Which too long I was offering to feed my soul,
Clear to me now standards not yet publish'd, clear to me that
my soul,
That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades,
Here by myself away from the clank of the world,
Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic,
No longer abash'd (for in this secluded spot I can respond as I
would dare not else,)
Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet
contains all the rest,
Resolv'd to sing no songs today but those of manly attachment,
Projecting them along that substantial life,
Bequeathing hence types of athletic love,
Afternoon this delicious Ninth-month in my forty-first year,
I proceed for all who are or have been young men,
To tell the secret of my nights and days,
To celebrate the need of comrades.

- Walt Whitman

officially the first bike trip of spring

first day again
this year, beginner's mind!

black dog

on this foggy morning
a black dog running through the cemetery
oh - and there is the human companion
coming along behind

it is unexpectedly cold
today

Making bread

dough rising

desire rising, anger rising
why is the dough so crumbly?
this dough and that picture in the book are not one!

knead knead
wait wait
watch watch

oh but it worked
rising arising!
what beautiful bread
this sunny morning
two living loaves like children

after the olympic celebrations

dark, blue, damp winter night
brown bunny leaps across this parking lot
ears up
to the sounds of cheering and honking in the distance
the sound of victory, the sound of sound