poem

the first plums just enough sweetness for now

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 […]

backyard afternoon :: a boy’s dreams take flight (Photo: San Mateo, March 2015)

evening walk I get mugged by the moon

office plant even the pebbles are plastic

ripening persimmons :: a pink sky and the waning moon

I have traveled across the midriff of america in semidarkness the windows closed so I cannot see what waters stretch out before us or what cities alongside us the darkness and smells of sleep surround me and my companions rest their arms against my arms, thin layers of fabric all that keep our skin

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 […

Urban canyon a hundred birds turn as one and disappear

in the train windowa flock of black birdsagainst the indigo skyand like ghost birdsthe reflections of streetlights

the shadow moves gently across the engine and I realize the plane is rocking very slightly as the captain’s hands on the controls — or perhaps it is the autopilot so it is the hands of the engineers who typed the code — are just barely rocking the plane  and all of us within it […]