Haiku

Jesus died for your 

sins, and the dinosaurs died

for your gasoline.

Less light falls today,

an early bed, a chance to

turn in, turn inward.

Seats for seven, but

six are empty—the car’s solace

for the sole driver.

Men in suits talk tough,

thousands of miles from the

soldier on fire.

War is not fought from

a chair; countries are not led

from the battlefield.

Don’t imitate me—

It’s like an echo, always

coming in second. 

The annoying fly—

I’d let you live if you stayed

slightly out of reach.

In the museum, 

a girl sits, trying for the

most charming selfie. 

They put on ears, tails—

It’s nothing new, this human 

worship of felines.

The cat kneads the soft

blanket, remembers happy

times with his mama.

November haiku

I just stepped outside 
under the nearly-full moon. 
It smells like winter.

Lost and Found

I'm lost in the glow of glittery things, yet no diamond.

     First known when lost!

I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all.

     What's left to lose?

Moments, their perfume lost, can't be found again.

     No, nothing's ever lost!

I have lost my back and forward. What do I do when lost?

     Stand still. The trees and bushes beside you are not lost.

(Space lost its vast dimensions and

drew comfortably around them.)

I finally lost my fear.

     Wherever you are is called here.

(She found and lit a last candle.)

     I found one of your poems today. I keep them all in an envelope.

I've seen you but I'm only now finding you.

(He found himself thinking of the green park a year ago.)

I found I could say things with colors and shapes that I couldn't say any other way.

     I found you like a trinket in an old trunk.

(He found the answer down on his knees, found the great treasure standing all open.)

Free me from worry, that familiar pain, that trail lost and found.

(A clear head will find itself.)

     Wherever we are is called here. 

Untitled Tanka

I crave a northbound

road to unhaunted landscapes,

worries left behind,

to where a soft wind rises

over and quiets my mind.

Free Me

Free me from worry, that familiar pain,

a well-traveled trail, lost and found.

Show me what my heart can contain.

Get me out of the canyon before the rain.

Show me the way to the high ground,

free me from worry, that reaching pain.

Lead me away from losses and gains--

not all victories will bring renown.

Show me what my heart can contain.

Let my breath be a simple refrain

as I climb higher, with a brief look down.

Free me from worry, that following pain.

Not everything demands to be explained--

mountains move without a sound.

Show me what my heart may contain.

Safe now, walking the high, calm plain,

a brilliant moon hangs low and round.

You transform my worry, that capricious pain,

and show me what my heart always contains.

Late Sun

Riding along the

rural road this evening, the

burn in my muscles

dropped away for a time, and

the late sun glowed like honey.

A Typical Afternoon

The music of the cooling

wind in the linden tree,

sedate summer birdsong,

maple-filtered light and

relieving shade in which

I now find myself

were here before I

noted them—just steps

away from routine.

So, too, in my mind,

to the I behind my eyes,

the self expanding out

from the physical, beyond

limbs, but not beyond reach.

Something within yet larger,

as the wind and air here

join seamlessly with sky,

though no one can say

precisely where.

Torrent

My thoughts:

Floodwater filled with

sediment, bits of what

has been consumed

blended to brown,

opaque and bitter.

No negotiating with

this torrent. Best to

give it room and time

to spread, slow and settle,

return to clarity,

this swelling river seeking

an ocean's release.

Waiting to Rise

I am water digging a deep channel

going back to where I've been before

trenches of worry and doubt deepening

with each passage I make something

about familiar pain that comforts

I rise   I condense   I fall

through a summer sky

seeing for miles only to return to the

same cold dark hard channel

cut from stone wearing it down

just a bit deeper caught and held

underground waiting again

to rise

Reaching

It was when my

fingers were in

that rich black soil

winter on the window's

other side and the dirt's

scent reached in and told me

something switched me on

and I next saw the spider

plant's root hanging in midair

reaching for what is far off

longing for that humid

warm earth

this reaching

thing like

me.

Haiku

You are thirsty earth;
I am the cloud filled with rain.
Come, get under me.

Response to Alan Watts

"If I ask you what you did, saw, heard, smelled, touched and tasted yesterday, I am likely to get nothing more than the thin, sketchy outline of the few things that you noticed, and of those only what you thought worth remembering." -- Alan Watts

Since you asked, yesterday was this:

Awaking to birdsong and sunlight

filtered through a tent's translucence.

The rhythm of the county route and my breath,

improvised music on a road rising and falling.

My feet at the bottom of a mountain lake,

clear water magnifying the roots of water lilies

reaching down from the surface.

Friends' laughter coming across the water

as if on a wire.

The mingled scent of pine needles and sand

opening a letter in my mind sent from summers past.

Woods, wind and water, and a marriage's first hours,

vows repeating like refrains, chants, mantras.

The sharp, malty beer shared with friends.

A nodding off in the passenger seat, Northway reverie,

part of the post-holiday parade.

Tanka at Lake Clear

Last night's loons now cruise
half submerged as wind sculpts waves.
They save their song for
the night, when summer stars light
the soft scallops of high peaks.

July Morning

The rider slices

open the thick air, feels a

gentle push of wind

only the birds and he know,

the world breathing and alive.

Haiku

Riding last evening,

the wind subsided and the

peepers' chorus rose.

Slow Spring

In the pre-dusk hush, the
mind slows, studying the 
snow which knows
stillness, and the thaw
and melt, drawn back
into the earth, no sound
in the soft ground, where
there is something 
green or wanting to
be green, while, above,
through cirrus wisps,
more light every day, 
while arctic wind disagrees--
wait, with the patience
of a tree in winter. 

Dusk at Round Lake

The rain of tires on Route 9

fades to abstraction as

wind stirs water, light

reflects here and not there,

subtle mirrors, pink fragments, and

the cold air's rousing call

on my skin—a turning

from the linear, from the

rush and crawl, to Round Lake,

clouds like calling fingers,

and a rounding moon.

River

I am a river,

cutting across man-made right

angle roads and fields,

willful, stubborn, to be worked

around, and not to be changed.

Peaks

Granite mountains rise,

evidence of violent collisions.

Sandstone erodes, the

patient work of wind and water.

Either way, peaks at which

we gape. What else is life

but adding and taking away?

Wind Thoughts

Mesas of my mind, arid plains

and the jutting forms rising from them,

sunlight and heat rousing the air,

causing my wind-thoughts to sing those

familiar songs of love and loss,

friends and joys, fears and comforts,

over and over again.