wants


the immigrant wants a nation
the refugee wants to go home
the native wants a pilgrimage

the rich want their way
the poor want their way

the birds want air

the bus passenger wants a car
the homeless wants a room
the worker wants a pay raise

the fish want water

the sick want health
the old want youth

the worm wants earth

the child wants summer
the lover wants spring

the flame wants more fire

Late afternoon yesterday,
while
taking 2 photos
of light on smashed glass,
a man screamed at me,
threw food.

I walked away,
silent.
He followed,
screaming.

At the crosslight he left me.

In front of me
was a birch tree and a small white dog.
The dog was so kind.
The tree was so beautiful.

...we live who have nothing of our own. We shall feed on joy...

-15.200 Dhammapada


new moon

wind upon water
at dusk

ai

light lisp
a line
under eyelid

Awoke from morning dream -

you, dead, wouldn't forgive.

Holding

me

I tried to untie us, cried.

Stress -

I have days of it, and doubt.

Change

places -

you

puts
you
here.


It's not true,
you.

It's morning -

me,

only this.

the life of a single day is better....
8.110 dhammapada

waning gibbous



In the parking lot, among hard coal,
stones.

I find fossils
from the sea -
a folded fish,
shell,
krill-like diminutives in broken red chert.

Stone for stone
life's
long dead,
stored,
anonymous.
We
too
will
give
bone,
blood,
flood soil,
make mountains
or,
drifting to sea edge,
enter in.
Shell, us, we, stone,
once, then again,
when we end.
All cycled
selves
forgotten -
so many!

To be rock
isn't
imagined
or
immortal.

How can stone,
beyond memory,
be lonely?
There's no
without,
wanting,
wishing
or waiting.

You'll forget this,
but I'll say it.

We are mud
on loan,
all demi-stones.

습기찬 (seubgichan)

When you
under
trout
running
inside
the
water
remember him
you're (yr)
eyes
not welling
but


this.

Moist.

night sound

A
snuffling snort
in the weed pile
as possum,
trundling,
stumbles upon
.........
and eats.

f u l l m o o n 43°N 2' 87°W 54'

die ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen

slid down

the mulberry

into

the garden

goldenrod

"one has no need of faith, one who knows the uncreated, has cut off rebirth..."
-- 97.7. dhammapada



(waning gibbous, unseasonable coolness)


earth cleared
pulled plants drying in the sun
with two days rain
a sere brown

a soul who

knows soil

grows

In a Japanese story
a man-tree hybrid
with two memories
saves his village
from an earthquake.

I thought of two men

one old now
far from me
apart

ground isn't sound
between us

another dead
uncreated
sends messages
warnings
his ashes
buried with his mala
under
a cedar sapling.