Driving to Work

 

While wandering 

in the thicket 

of my thoughts 

I return to my life 

at the song of

the swaying magnolias.

Drinking Honey Orchid Dancong

 

Like the unfurling 

tea leaves of many hues

the words

will emerge 

of their own accord.

Teaism

 

It is continually yielding lessons on how to live.

Rediscovering Grandfather Style Tea

 

• The languor of tea leaves 
• unfurling 
• amassing in sediments
• over successive brews.

A Gift

 

Leaning back against the Poäng with her eyes half closed, her thin hands clasped a mug of coffee mainly for the warmth it imparted, as the coffee itself was often barely drunk.

Seeing me when she opened her eyes, my mother unexpectedly asked for a pen and a piece of paper.  As I hurriedly searched for the writing implements, I tried to remember when I last saw her use a pen, all the while fearing that she would forget her request if I did not act quickly enough.

To my relief, once she had the pen in hand along with a piece of lined paper that I quickly tore from my journal, she propped the blank sheet of paper on a new issue of Vogue magazine and started writing without pause.

She finished writing a few minutes later and looked up.  With a gleam in her eyes, she handed me the piece of paper, now scrawled with several lines of verses in French, in a handwriting I recognized.  

The verses were those she has known since childhood:

A day when I would be old

and you would be old.

Your blond hair will become whitened

Elsa, Elsa...  

A Memory

 

     

I continue to see the path, with the eyes of my seven-year-old self, despite revisiting it many decades later. Tidy without much adornment from overhanging foliage, the path traversed the length of our yard, from the forbidding metal gate to the garage, it was my fiefdom when I was still an only child.

I wandered along it, suffused with fear and exhilaration as I touched the leaves of a Venus Flytrap bordering the path, seeing the fronds avidly closing over my small hand.

Several years later, with my younger sister by my side, I shared the spoils of my fiefdom with her, watching her marvel as I deftly enjoined the carnivorous plant to reveal itself to her.

Boddhisatva

 

My old cat is an equanimous

Chinese sage

ever trusting of a warm lap

as she dozes awash

in swirls of rainbows.

April

 

Pendant drops of rain 

bejeweled the bare branches 

for one brief morning.

Drinking Peppermint Tea

 

A schmear of sun

dazzles from behind 

the neighbor’s maple 

and softens the gnarled branches.

Untitled

   

At this moment 

my cup of tea 

with its bitter note 

is as it should be.

Matcha

 

As I whisk

the fine verdant granules 

whirl and blend 

into the steaming water 

and a confluence of tiny bubbles 

erupt onto the surface 

releasing a piquant scent 

and a host of mornings past.

Several Years Later

 

The dun colored tree

viewed from 

the other side 

of the mountain

becomes 

resonatingly crimson.

In the Snow Storm

 

Returning from their walk 

to the muddied lake

a three-legged dog

cantered through the snow banks 

by the side 

of his smiling owner.

Amanecer Sobre El Lago

 

Esperar pero aún vivir en el momento. 

En La Cafetería

 

Busco la inspiración de Proust y la luz cambiante.  

Sight

 

 

My purblind cat

lopes across the room 

in the same seeing way 

and heralds the eventual 

hop onto my lap

with a swish of her tail.

En La Fronda

 

In the bower

we wait

for the words

to emerge.

 

Escribo para me descubrir.  

Los Ocasos

 

I am not bereft 

when I have the sunsets 

I share with my mother.

Mi Amor de Palabras

 

O to luxuriate 

in a well-rounded O

slowly cradled 

until it expires.

Making Tea

The promise of precision 

slips away 

when stray thoughts

enfold themselves 

into the pouring 

of the emerald green liquid.

Winter

 

A dark filigree

of bare branches 

radiates into 

the smoky sky.

Below, a palimpsest 

of snowfalls.

Untitled

 

Sitting next to a cat 

with the sun in my eyes 

amidst flitting rainbows

O fleet afternoon.

Inspiration

 

Surfacing

as an idea

too trivial

to water

nevertheless 

I let it grow.

Time

 

I live my days 

in half-curated pockets 

outside of time

to counter time.

Untitled

 

Me veo por los ocasos.

( I see myself in sunsets.)

-Federico García Lorca from the poem, “Confusión”

Starlings

In the back of a car 

she returned to me 

as we both watched 

a flock of starlings

pouring wordlessly 

across the crimson sky.

La Gata Mágica

 

Los temblores suaves 

de una gata

pueden salvar

el mundo!

A Month Later

 

At my parents’ home 

the trees are

now bare of snow 

as two squirrels scamper

along the trunk

of the ancient oak.

My morning matcha 

I drink from  

a different bowl.

Palabras

 

Sibilant, crackling 

and dulcet by turns

they quietly enfold.

Una Poema Para Los Niños

 

 

La leona

en mi casa

recuerda el sauce 

desde otra vida

mientras está durmiendo

bajo del pequeño jasmín.

New Year’s Day

 

To the New Year

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible.

-W.S. Merwin