Decision

May be it’s to answer a call or blind fate in finding something

You decide to hike the Appalachian Trail.

The trail is kind to the brave and humble

The pain and sweat and determination

Stay with every step in solidarity with others.

To reach the summit the climb becomes steeper

You have to grab handholds firmly

And pull yourself up with steady upper body strength

In the thin air your heart has to persevere

Your legs gather the steps almost like forever

You do not lose sight of your stamina and purpose

Till a shout of triumphal gratitude.

 

You  are in your nineties now

Seldom mention the deep meaning of your accomplishment

You often smile when someone talks about hiking or a climb

You walk only two to three miles a day.

Questions when I was a freshman

Questions when I was a freshman

One has to have affection for those who do sweat producing work

They grind their way

The results, decent and laudable

Worth of respect and smile

And who can say, they will not chase goats for a game or

not write a guide for the perplexed.

Can you be loyal and articulate to an attachment you revere?

My heart is as peaceful as the snow falling on top of the trees.

Ordinary Things

Ordinary Things

I will not need a hammer

to make a yogurt

I may need a loom

to weave a tapestry

To find lost civilizations

I have to dig hard and deep

The ordinariness of routines,

struggle and perseverance

The devoted hours of monks:

prayers, sleep, work

I will have to master my hands

may not need a trowel or shovel

to work my way through

to find a needle, diamond, or poem

hidden inside a haystack.

The Path

“We just arrived,” say the fishermen

“It’s a Siberian huskie,” he says.

“They become cold easily,” she says

Both dogs are wearing colorful sweaters.

Day’s radiance lifts my feet

I meet them in my walk 

The same path every morning whenever I can

As if I’m trying remember each column of trees,

Their abundant leaves and shades.

 

I often think of Camino de Compostela.

I hold with interest Appalachian Trail.

I hear the sounds of hot air balloons overhead

I better get going

Thoughts can escape

I can’t separate appearances and their contents

The dogs, fishermen, river and its tides

One doesn’t have to wonder where poems come from. 

 

The walk brings life to life.

Time in the woods

A time of windy days, of falling leaves

Trees of fertile, intricate roots, anchored

Rarely do we enter the woods

As if we are afraid bears or snakes may cross our path

Thursday afternoon or any day,

Any ordinary day, is a day of sauntering,

Luminous time of spending an afternoon

Without concern of looking backwards

Not to imagine but to experience kindness of time passing,

To experience ourselves vulnerable and alone sheltered in the woods,

I like to think distant birds return because of me, a selfish notion of enticement,

Dreams die not because of unimportance

Though lustrous, their solace is celebrated no more

If you are struggling just to survive, are you missing much of life?

I encounter the homeless and heard of refugees

They crowd the margins, tiptoeing the edge of the cliffs,

The deep sea below and jagged rocks.

Each morning they look for a clean place

to be alone.

Life of abundance, life of scarcity, life of loss

And the liminal spaces between

What are the life’s possibilities and questions?

Intense experiences challenge the boundaries.

Solirude. Tumult. Arrested time.

The book I’m reading, page 37, asks,

“What’s the measure of your worth?”

Priceless, I shouted.

A Wish

 

Be a guardian angel

A caravan may need you

Walking for days looking for answers

For a practical place for winter living.

Would you rather study

different calamities in the world?

 

To memorize details may not be necessary or a time lost.

If you walk a lot

You may arrive at odd places

Kindness is rare, start the day with gratitude.

The simplest way to change the world,

Restore glaciers and abundant forest

And slows down the wind.

 

The caravan will find the oasis

The nomads can walk forever.

To thread a needle

It will be difficult to thread a needle

If you are farsighted.

 

He loses his temper and throws the dental floss

He doesn’t want to talk or smile.

 

She doesn’t chase the last word anymore when she talks

She observes the three bees on the rhododendron.

 

He drives in the forest and along the coast

He is calm under the redwood trees.

 

She drops the vase filled with water and flowers on the living room

Her right hand is bleeding.

 

He helps her clean up

They decide to make amends.

 

“Seize the day,” the poet says

Helping others is the crowning praise.

 

It’s wonderful when verb and adjectives are used together

I like crabs dancing under the candle lights.

 

When pronouns drop in , it’s hilarious

All the nouns scatter.

 

They are laughing walking on the beach

Beethoven is a pianist, then a composer.

 

Experience of loss and sad endings are dispersed in life

They are secret ingredients of freedom.

 

She runs alone, alone with her own thoughts

The hardest challenge.

 

Failure, triumph, dried tears, lost tracts of time

In sepia then autumn raging with colors.

 

Embroidery is a sacred craft

We welcome new threads.

Waiting all day

“I think we’re creative all day long. And we have to have an appointment to have that work out on the page.” 

-Mary Oliver

New Addition

The object of the Rule of 6 Plus One is not about accomplishments but simple enjoyment of state of being.

It’s a daily practice of self-discovery. It’s an expression of awareness. It’s a celebration of life where you give your “fullest, deepest attention.”

This evening Mrs. Abstract and I went to dinner with a couple of friends. We met other friends in the restaurant. It’s our Rotary club’s Dine and Donate night.

Where will I put this occasion in the Rule of 6 Plus One?

It’s not an imaginative play, or ideas to ponder? It’s a tight squeeze for Encounters with Beauty. Dinner with friends is sharing. It’s relationships. 

For children and adults Sharing is an additional category in the celebration of life. It deserves a separate category which  will overlap with the others. All the seven activities can be shared. The Rule of 6 Plus One will need an additional activity: Sharing. The daily activities will become Rule of 7 Plus One.

My mnemonics can be: Imagine Baudelaire Walking Writing Sharing Intense Poetic Encounters

What do you think?

My Pagoda

How to think your way

For six days in a row I have been walking for at least one hour each day. It was prompted by my heart doctor that I should be more commited to my health and fitness. I started reading a book, Let Your Mind Run, A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory by an American long distance runner and Olympic medalist, Deena Kastor, co-written with Michele Hamilton.

It’s an honest, frank ,and inspiring story of how Deena Kastor started running, baring the essentials of her training and personal insights in what winning and losing mean. Her training helps her tremendously not just to be the best athlete but also how to be a better person.

I find that I can apply her training as a runner to me for my fitness and health. She wrote about how she inspires herself to enjoy the rigors of training. She says: “As an athlete I’ve found aside from hard work, the greatest tools for success are optimism and gratitude.These practices have led to happiness and the routine pause to realize I’m living the life I love and dreamed of.”

Her:blog

Today was warmer than yesterday.I walked for 75 minutes in the neighborhood.