haibun

A lovely evening for a swim. The tide was low and the water cool, and as I waded out (quite far before it was deep enough to swim) I noticed that the squishy mud I was wading through was warm, quite a bit warmer than the water actually. estuary :: the night gives back what […]

They are cutting down the pine tree on the corner. It was maybe 80’ tall and almost three feet in diameter, perfectly healthy, an old tree full of years. And now it’s mostly wood chips. Today, for the first time in weeks, the sky is blue, and there is more of it than before. I […]

This is the University of Chicago “Great Books of the Western World” collection, edited by Mortimer Adler and published in the 1950s. My grandmother, a single mom on a budget, scrimped and saved for months to buy this for my father when he was quite young, maybe 12, and it shaped the rest of his […]

10:30am. A layer of smoke overhead so thick it has plunged us back into darkness. The streetlights are on, but no one is out. midday darkness what the raven will tell its children about this day #haiku #haibun #california #smoke https://www.instagram.com/p/CE7K6FzJRwT/?igshid=19jkwj1se9paj

It’s a challenge to walk in the Tenderloin and not become numb to the world around you. So much squalor and hopelessness. And yet you can still look up from a street corner and see a flock of birds flying out of the sunrise like messengers of the light. Could you see that light in […]

Watch out for that first step At the Zen group, after sitting for half an hour, we took turns reading from Charlotte Joko Beck’s Everyday Zen. The key question in the selection we read, on what the practice is: What can you rely on? Joko Beck’s answer: You can rely on life to continue being […]

The dogs have fleas. The cat keeps pooping on the kitchen floor. The house is of course a mess, and my daughter is graduating from high school tomorrow — assuming she got rid of that F in English.  Meanwhile, my wife is recovering from her 2nd eye surgery in a month, after two months of […]

The world constantly reminds us that nothing is permanent. Nothing escapes destruction. wisteria in bloom :: what the old stones don’t tell

The setting sun fills the darkening blue-purple sky with pink and orange streaks, vivid enough to catch my attention through the kitchen window. I step out onto the deck and the cool air on my face reminds me: It’s all still here. The sky, the air, the trees, the space around me. Nothing has gone […

Driving down from the Altamont Pass, the highway curves through a long, shallow, descending valley on its way down to the flats of the San Joaquin Valley. Wind turbines on either side, and the occasional cow. Karen noticed the hills rising up from us on the left side were covered in dark green trees