With Myanmar, September 7
Miniature monk,
a tiny praying mantis
amid basil’s green
Quite Who
I never forget
who I am, since I’ve never
known who I might be
So Stealthy
Beautiful dry day
after beautiful dry day –
so stealthy this drought
A.K., September 24, 2007
We keep you in mind
as if searching for the plans
to build you again
Up Early, Worried
Up early, worried,
I feel the dread in the flesh
that is life itself
Gunshots
Acorns are falling
with the report of gunshots
on slate roof and deck
Drink
Autumn woodland fog
passes through the spiders’ webs,
leaves fresh drink behind
Eruption
V’s of geese erupt
from dense banks of autumn fog
scream upwards and off
Time Reduces
Time reduces me
to something like an essence
but still not quite me
Slipping Through
I keep slipping through
the noose of my own knowing
so I stay alive
The Sky’s Flag
In dry October
the blue jay flies the sky’s flag,
darts through falling leaves
Windows
Windows in the woods
start to open as leaves fall –
I see sky patches
To Write
In order to write,
I step back from what I see
to find it again
New Surface
The act of writing
turns me inside out – how strange
this new surface is
Tired
I’m tired of me,
something sweet in this fatigue,
with a hint of rot
None?
I’m shell within shell –
which one is the innermost –
or might there be none?
Poised
October’s still green
but summer’s fever has calmed –
the paintbrush is poised
Autumn
While I still can see
I record the mysteries
I can’t comprehend
Dog And Doubts
Soft October night
I take my dog and my doubts
for a long slow walk
Dawn Mist
Dawn mist hugs the ground,
fills the hollows of the land –
a deer’s head floats by
Smoke Rises
The way smoke rises –
so words should go up to join
the sky of silence
Wonder
Am I a wonder
only insofar as I
can’t help wondering?
Warm
Warm October night,
with the cicadas singing
amid painted leaves
Ghosts
Moonlit heartless night –
leaves fall from trees, flutter down –
ghosts of butterflies
Right Name
Separation grief,
that’s the right name, the one I
whisper to myself
Autumn Sleep
White dog’s fast asleep,
unaware two brown leaves have
landed in her snow
Jungle
I wish I had names
for the plants that grow and make
jungle inside me
Warm
Warm October night
won’t let summer go, even
if summer is gone
Toothache
Toothache in the rain
the cold of autumn is here
I’ve no place to hide
Underneath
In autumn downpour,
gray question mark cat hunts mice
underneath the house
Splashes
After days of rain
splashes of sunshine break through
huge pearl clouds, thinning
Old Stumps
Old black stumps rot out
into cities, whose skylines
are slick and jagged
Golden Sheet
The sun’s golden sheet
unrolls over rainbow woods
as breeze launches leaves
Drowned
Five white tailed deer drowned
in a swimming pool – how strange
is animal fate
Stevenson Bison
Last year bison jumped
the net on a tennis court –
victory gesture?
Slalom
A single red leaf
slaloms down October breeze,
doesn’t miss a gate
Death
When I think of death,
my thinking is not thinking,
but the truth of fear
Cold, Toothache
I wake up in despair
with a cold and a toothache –
is this all it takes?
Commonplace
Today’s commonplace
was born in a world lost past
all imagining
Myself Ticking
Wherever I go,
I carry time inside me,
hear myself ticking
Planet
Were I a planet
my regrets would run as deep
as veins of silver
Remembering
I’m remembering
November, when, like a leaf,
you fell and were still
Tree Of Life
How slender the stem
that holds me to the tree, life,
whose trunk is this air
Elk
I still hear the elk
bugling on the mountainside
twenty-five years ago
Stink
Stink of a dead buck,
decomposing, a youngster
by the river’s edge
Search
Year after bright year
I watch the leaves slanting down,
search the wind for words
Insect Truth
Butterflies are gone,
but the mosquitoes remain –
a sad insect truth
Amber
The amber of tea
first traps all my reflections,
then lets me drink them
Simple Parts
Mother and father
are simple parts of the earth,
yet walk in my mind
Not Just
Not just in shadow
but in the very light that
makes me burn is death
Dying Oak, Autumn
Slant of dying oak
covered in ivy amid
the surrounding gold
Expert
Autumn is expert
in dyeing dying’s colors,
how wonder weaves woods
Up And Down
I go up and down,
thinking sometimes that I am,
sometimes that I’m not
Eons
I dream of eons,
yet come back to instants,
the talk of my tick
Dragon
The dragon of hope
breaths flame and singes flowers,
burns us all to ash
What?
Wind, weather change how
I hold myself in my hands
in my head in…what?
Words
Words use me as I
presume to use them for earth,
air, fire and water
Inner Ear
Happiness of ear
trying to listen within
for an inner wind
Wordless Color
The wordless color
of these woods in autumn, fresh
even as I age
Empty
In empty moments,
memory lassoes me, drags
me from where I stand
Sunlight
Sunlight that made me
transforms an autumn morning –
a deer disappears
Saffron
Red threads of saffron
I have plucked from the crocus –
how they’ll yellow rice!
Obscure
How obscure I am –
each chance of intersection
finds me newly skew
Lacquered Reds
The autumn woods glow
lacquered reds and golds in rain –
soon they’ll be bare bone
Way Station
A red leaf lands now
on a lower branch, breaking
its journey to ground
Intricacy
Who can imagine
intricacy of what is
beyond strutting science?
I Wait
I’ve planted tulips –
now I wait for mystery
to explode in spring
Pendulum
A leaf’s suspended
by a spider’s thread and so
makes a pendulum
Fine Gold
On fine gold carpets
I walk mile upon sweet mile –
such is autumn’s wealth
Still
When I was little
I walked the woods in a book
now I walk them still
Crows
Raucous cries – a mob
of crows in the pin oak tree –
are these football fans?
Like Rubies
Glowing like rubies,
the fall crop of raspberries –
the white dog grabs one
Wordless Balm
What I see goes far
past what I can say – beauty
is a wordless balm
Phantom
How can I follow
the promptings of my nature,
which but half exists?
November 18, 2007
The weeping cherry
has put on its yellow robe
prelude to the nude
Playbook
I’m dreaming reasons
for my puzzling existence –
x’s and zeroes
Raw End
This bone chilling cold,
the raw end of November,
sun a ghost in grey
Convention
I’m a convention,
those inside me so diverse,
I never agree
This Fog
Talking to myself,
I can rarely find clear words,
so I speak this fog
Splendors
It’s a simple thing –
happiness coins such splendors
as surpass dreaming
Of That Doe
Beauty of that doe,
young, slight, alert, stays with me
in me for days, weeks
Lush
Lush warm night comes down
on leaves of many colors –
holly has white blooms
Poaching
The poaching of pears –
the white dog is fast asleep
as Thanksgiving comes
Print of each instant
is distinct as a finger’s
in the dust I am
Whisper
The whisper of hope
that something can yet be born
inside my own ache
Near Shore
Deer bound for the woods,
beaver scrambles for water
as white dog closes
Signature
On warm autumn air
a soft signature of skunk
almost beautiful
Red Berries
Eating bittersweet
berries as red as itself
lone fall cardinal
Parenthesis
Each parenthesis
is nest for a mystery,
as I am, (myself)
A. K.
In dream came A. K.,
said she had spliced time so she
could be still alive
Memory
Memory fights death,
then slowly concedes, recedes
to join what it fought
Lost Gold
The weeping cherry
is newly nude, its lost gold
strewn over the ground
Waked
Fall of baked brown leaf
makes such a slant in my mind
I feel newly waked
Mulch
Mulch for what comes next,
each leaf was once a story –
I drop from my branch
Rudderless
Ruddy fade of day
into wide rudderless night –
how my mind careens
Here Here
I don’t go back where
I came from – there’s no there there,
barely a here here
Bronze Red Hands
Large as bronze red hands,
leaves of the pin oak can’t grasp
the wind that flaps them
Lost Worlds
Sorrow makes me tired
as if I had to carry
the bones of lost worlds
So Blue
Now the sky’s so blue
it is hard to imagine
any other sky
Shy
Wisdom hides nothing,
is drab not from modesty,
but just to be free
My Waking
More than I sing it –
so much more – sunlight sings me,
gives me my waking
Furnace
Inverted blue bowl
of late fall sky – my breath steams
from furnace I am
Red And Blue
Crossing suddenly
so close – blue jay, cardinal –
the red and the blue
No Eyes
Wind choreographs
dance it has no eyes to see,
ballet of the leaves
Stuff
We’re in love with stuff,
so that ourselves we do stuff,
so we turn into stuff
Long Sunny
In trees’ company
I wend a long sunny way,
doubting my sorrows
Autumnal
This autumnal ache,
that the chain of tomorrows
must soon be broken
Jaunty
In the year’s first snow,
burl head wears a cap of white,
really quite jaunty
I Don’t Rule
I float on the cells
of an empire I don’t rule –
I dread its collapse
Leaves, Suddenly
Leaves suddenly yield
a stick which becomes a snake
beige and beady eyed
Lightning Fingers
Mother in my dreams
you’re thunder on the piano
with lightning fingers
Nature
Nature knows nothing,
is wiser than all knowing –
how empty why is
Same Windows
These last two decades
I’ve looked out these same windows
as my vision changed
Ebbing
Drizzle, darkness, fog,
another year is ebbing
as the white dog snores
Bewildered
I’m still bewildered,
most of all by simple things –
am I possible?
Before
White dog and white swans
on a leaden autumn day
before the rain falls
Beloved
Beloved old house,
almost in ruins, just like
my own childhood
Mine
Listening to dreams,
I hear a thousand voices
I could take for mine
Shaft
I mine what is mine,
although the risks are so great
the shaft will collapse
Laboratory
Laboratory,
each instant experiment –
this is how I am
Wondering
I keep wondering
why is it I’m wondering –
there is no answer
Less
I know less and less,
but can’t quite get to nothing
which holds all there is
A Thread
A thread so slight, how
it meets fingertips is right
at illusion’s edge
Small
How render the truth
of what’s vanishingly small,
of my own estate?
Splash
I’m diving into
the infinitesimal –
I don’t make a splash
Mind
How strange the mind is,
for it goes a thousand roads
and holds a million
Twilight
Twilight is oak strokes
of different dark barked inks,
no trace of the pen
Habits
Only my habits
know how frightened I am – I
trust them not to tell
Night
When the night comes down
the day gone by starts to glow
like stars with questions
Shortest
Year’s shortest day –
moon is a pale wafer caught
in slim oak fingers