Moon music

like notes from a far horn
forlorn and slow
white egrets flow to and fro
below the setting sun
one settles on a limb

its slim silhouette
above the wet and heaving way
is charcoal grey, a stark
mark on the bright end of day
where we stray, far and late

we wait for the water's shift
watching it lift and sigh
like the shifting cries of settling birds
heard through the darkening air
and look, there comes the gibbous moon,

due soon to swell full,
it pulls the changing tide
it slides across the water's darkness
slipping under us and the boat
like a lone note from a far horn

The dark well

she stood at the dry well
under the blush of eastern sky
and looked in

heard the shadows
of water lapping the stone wall
and the crack

of a pebble skittering down
through slivered light to
silvered shadow

what is darkness but
a pool of color resting
awaiting replenishment

shadow is only
waiting for
the return of light


Click on the photos for larger versions.

Sound beyond sound

hiss of tea kettle
clatter of pans on burners
drip-dripping of coffee
scrape of chair legs on floor
soft crack of spoon on eggshell
slurp from a cup
hum of the refrigerator

beyond the window
above silent, new snow
bird song



















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Small things

today is as good a day as any
let me warm my cold hands
in yours
little one

remind me to gather
the warm blanket of gratitude
and feel the love
coursing through
everything

all that ever mattered
in this world
all that ever means
anything at all
is here


Click on the photo for a larger version.

The cruelest month

The grey days crowd together like piles of fish in the market. Short and slippery, they go by quickly, flashing into the deeper nights. You're drawn under and you hold your breath while your head throbs. Looking up at the dim and dappled blue light, you wait, tumbling like freefall, like a class IV washing machine. Until one day the undertow shifts and spits you out, wrinkled and gasping, stumbling onto the bright and gritty shores of spring.

one day the dark light
will spread gently into spring's
golden green halo


Click on the photo for a larger version. The title of this haibun is borrowed from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

Like a box of...

A little sampler for you today:

"Sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence."
— David Byrne

"For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make."
— Geoffrey Chaucer, Parlement of Foules

"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down."
— Woody Allen, Love and Death

"Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves."
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye."
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

One of my old favorite songs

Do you do it Aristotelian or Wittgensteinian?

What not to give someone you love

I just might be doing this later today, it's good for the heart

***

Did you find one you enjoyed? Maybe mint, caramel, or dark chocolate truffle?

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! Thank you, dear reader, for stopping by — you are appreciated. Will U B mine 4 2day?

Adhesive capsulitis

Such a simple thing
to ask that an arm move the
way it is meant to

but each day brings more
hard work of moving what still
does not want to move.

Like scar tissue stretched
taut and short, this shoulder has
been a pinioned wing

held tightly down for
aching months of silence. Now
it lifts just enough.

My arm can again
wrap over the guitar and
fingers reach the strings—

patterns of quickfire
celebration — sweet release —
today, this arm sings!


Click on the photo for a larger version.

Honesty, you snake

Honesty, you snake, I see
you sidle into bed with me
pinned by your riveting gaze I hear
your passionate whispering in my ear
you make me write the things I do
with centered certainty shot through
as sure and shaped as if each tempered lie were true


Click on the photo for a larger version.

Blurred lines

on the verge of the road it is hard
to see just where the gravel shoulder merges
with the lapping, dusty sagebrush sea

I wake in the rumbling darkness
nestled among the sliding,
brushy slopes of sage,
from dreaming

that I am driving the car
the length of your
long, glowing thigh

I want to enter your ocean
completely, I want to taste
your salty margins, I want

the wind of your kisses
to engulf me so that where
I end and you begin

is lost

Nachtmusik

the tiny stars shiver
among the dark curtains
of night, blue lights flickering
in silent overture for
the listening mind

across the broad scrim of
deep sky the moon rolls
yet again in its comfortable rotation,
a graceful dance, tracing
staves for a canon of light


Click on the photo for a larger version.

Daybreak

crack open the day —
see the sun's yolk slip
over the curved lip
of the earth's smooth shell
into the dark interior of night
and slide, with its
beautiful blue albumen,
into the sky shimmering above


Click on the photo for a larger version.