shadow

Who
at morning-rise, speaking
from the shadow leading on,
Goes with you
still in the evening, trailing behind.
Life's long walking
To the gate
of twilight, where the shadow
fades into that night
Beyond which
a strange dawn or none at all awaits.
Listen close, while
There is
yet time, to hear the shadow's voice,
a knowing beyond choice,
of what you are when you are
Only nothingness

Look now

Talk
of the long goodbye,
the solace of old folks
in their dying. That
Is talk
tuned to the ticking of the clock.
But if, as you are alive, you
Look now
at whatever greets your sight, say
Birds
arriving from a busy flight, alighting
On the branches
overhead, their musical twittering
dancing in the air, singing of
The sunlight
as it beams, suddenly the immediacy
Streams though
the universe vibrantly
in the golden gleaming of
The leaves

snail trails

Bright patterns
no two alike, the way of Nature.
Only humans are repititious.
Only humans create straight lines.
On the pavement
our walkways, our separation
and protection. Streets. Houses. Walls.
Snail trails
remind us of other forms.
They also inhabit a world of their own.
All species defined. These
delicate markings are what they leave behind.
Gleaming
As we, too, when we are gone,
shall add to the residue of dust.
In the morning
something begins anew.
A welcoming challenge,
to break the bounds of isolation.
Distinctions dissolving
in a oneness of uniqueness.
Apart and a part of
Sunlight

water-clock

Clock
The hidden mechanism within.
Relentless gears. Turning.
And Water
in bowl, in pool, river and lake,
wider and wider, oceanic.
Source of life. Blood. Cloud. Sky.
Sun arising
New day, eyes opening.
Casting away the nagging dreams,
night gloom and regret.
To answer Time's threat
with eagerness.
So swift the clock
but we are quick, racing to be free.

The water
of which we are, and all the world,
out there, within, and far beyond
the vast sea border.
Waiting.
So still

parade

People
watching the parade of clowns and acrobats
Walking by
while the sinner is
Talking softly
in the confessional, even as
You can hear
with the inner ear,
your own transgressions and the
Music
of the band approaching.
Thus imagination's spell does
More than
compensate the balance of the real.
It overboards the abstract inevitability of
Words

patio

Of bricks
now and in remembrance. The tension
of time in the mind, its only residence.
Here in the patio
Sunlight
through the green.
The leaves and branches over head.
Amid the given, the things of the world.
Shadows
on the bricks, slhouettes of leaves,
alert to the patches of sunlight,
anticipating dusk.
Flowers
everywhere. A veritable laughter of design.
Unimaginable in their actuality.
Color abundant
each instance a whisper of wonder,
as the sitting still, observing,
enters in as it is entered into
Tranquility

force of life

Within
the stillness of silence
The movement of
understanding has no words.
Time
is absent in the mind, and
You are
nowhere to be found, simply
Carried
by the force of life as it travels
On
its way, while
The wave of
unknowing takes causeless
Effect

body-mind

Though thought
like a theater lit within
Is alert
to the fictive motives
of the ghosts of players gone
The deeper
message of the
Body-mind
is in the river-flow of
Dreams
A wordless language falling slow
Toward sleep
telling the mystery
which we have kept and keep
In stone

waking

On waking
Time was new, the instant
of amazement
patterns as never before,
made by sunlight on the floor.
There
were no precedents to dull the sight.
Then the first thoughts
Came
born of hidden desires and fears, defiling
The cleansing
night had brought. Yet, still, a balmy
Breeze
of Spring's fresh warmth
maintained an element of that
Emptying
so promising in its endlessness,
The mind
then poised between continuing
or abandoning the habit
Of striving