Hoaxes

Will what I fear
come to pass
in the "crosshatches of love"
or that kind of nonsense
when words are only baubles
on a shining lake

And moments of the inspired
remain formless waiting
for a patience
that is more than time

And many spewn words
from the impatient become
deep sounding phrases
of gossamer hoaxes?

I Wait

Behind the Japanese paper
screen a ritual unfolds without me
of silence and mimed gestures
under an unseen rain.

Elsewhere, it is dry:
for twigs to break and a fire
that refuses to burn
while I sit and wait.

Edward Hopper's Evening Wind

Cold breezes
and billowing sheets,
thin whiteness from the foot traffic
of leathern shoes and clopping hooves.

While above,
she is in a world of her making.





Evening Wind

Words

When you have asked what
it all means, the deconstruction
of a poem, I search in vain
for words that convey
more than those already there.

Tendrils entwine
each and every
one with meaning
beyond the surface
coolness
of my crafted reveries.

And when left alone in their
links of colored paper,
you can hear them ring
like plangent waves.

Opening

We grope in the dark for an opening
however small
as slit wise would be large enough
for opportunity to
slip
in
before we think to change our minds.

Outside My Window

I want to tell you
about a birch you will not know
in the rain, at dusk
simply adorned with
pearls that replenish.

Piebald bark of spring,
in your nakedness
I see the wet gleam of night.

This City

There was talk of it being like
other cities, Old World flavors shining
in sunlight when my parents came
with their bags for the day.

I see the city each day
gliding by with its buildings
and streets on tides
that carry me
inland to the rivers
or to the lake
at sunrise.

I pass by a street of cream city brick
steep in its course from another century
and now hear it ring with the echo
of Roman hills I have seen.

Fog by the Lake

I did not expect the familiar
to deceive, guises
in damp gray:
blocks I have learned to call
SCIENCE MUSEUM,
and a former restaurant with
its main claim to fame, a view of our lake.

My wool scarf is wet
with the drops fallen
from splaying branches by the water
and I go in circles
into the unknown, where even the sun
is a muted orb of its true self,
and I am careful lest
feeling my freedom I go out
too far on the breakwater.

Zazen With Cats

It is natural when sitting
amid the fur pile of
half shaded eyes
and a brindled paw
or two
that I close my eyes
letting the sweet
slack
feeling steal over

while a part of me remains
awake to notice
the breath rising
and ebbing
like an anchor
in the sea of vast incomprehension.

To Nature

Here I go
again despite myself
writing about you
when I had thought to do
otherwise.

For how can I resist
your days dwindling
into the night skies
touched by the few gulls
over the river.

Slow Blink

I am hard-pressed to come up with anything
lovelier
than your slow blink
from across the room
shading to a soft-lidded
reverie

I have come to know

Your lope
angular
and of fixed intent
wending my way so that with a leap
you are here.