Forgiveness
I plant a tree
I help an old man cross the street
I walk with others
who walk in the park
heads down, heads up
smiling, withdrawn
a day in the world
to gather love in the basket
and give away
“universal forgiveness” of what we have
and what we are.
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.
Love
Walking around the kitchen, dining room
She notices words on boxes, objects on the walls
On papers lying around the tables
She hears the sounds, sees images, juxtapositions
She remembers her mother
making wreaths out of corks
She arranges her own
Made of mushrooms and marshmallows, crackers and fruits
She remembers when her mother took her to an art museum
They saw Monet’s paintings of haystacks and water lilies
She remembers her mother
took her and toured a pineapple plantation
She imagines Monet painting
rows and rows of pineapples
How about rows and rows of olive trees
Will he get tired of them?
She wishes she can ask her mother
She will know.
The blossoming of what one solitary heart can attain
Each time one opens the window of dawn
The abundant praise that comes out
The ordinariness shaped since ancient time
A rhododenrdrone, mountain goats, waterfalls
All offered to be touched, uttered, experienced,
Makes one bolder to leave the shelter
Shyness can not remain hidden
The dialogue of senses climbing each step
To attain the summit of expressions
The confluence of thousand stars, a constellation
We are the new arrivals
The vastness seems to be always there
We think they will last forever
They are evanescent as we are
But we try as if leaving a hint
Of what we are.
My Levels of Knowing
Fire, smoke and interruptions
Surround us
I found a pebble in my pocket
The entrance to the castle is open
My grandfather does not travel
He often takes me fishing
The guards sees us
We smile and walk forward
My friends are engaged in birdwatching
My grandmother sometimes hides broken pieces in the closet
When are you returning
Inside the castle with its grandeur, we are lost like kittens
We can’t rise to the day’s heights or adapt to the hours
I accept the brevity of a flower,
I am getting older.
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.
It’s the stillness that we observe
Because we feel intolerance of waiting
We bounce like a ball, one silliness to another
Not unlike a series of romantic interludes
While rafting in white waters
We can be swept from one swirl to another
Racing the heart perilously close to scare
Before finding a sweet flow of comfort.
We fall silent once more
Attend to the present
Embracing the moment
We arrive at reality.
We mistake our will, it’s power, as savior to attainment
Once ignorant we discover achievement, knowledge
We forget limits to our powerful striving
Little miracles carry us over the last hurdle.
Every step carries a gift of gratitude
Every step an act of praise
Where all our bewilderment come from
Where we bring our final homage.
Calamities, distant or vague
Bring tremors to the mind
Where do you want to be
When the sun goes down?
Can you be anywhere,
Ubiquitous like the sun?
But the mind though untrammeled
Can not occupy all spaces.
A fisherman bruised by absence of fish
Will pursue with ferocity
Any hints of trout presence
In whatever weather or distance.
He will not be deceived by color
Or pitch of whirling waters
Or exasperated by any sinking thought
The oars are focused, desire is steeled.
Does begin the intellectual incarnation
A reverence for beauty and truth
The universe forever expanding
I’m feverishly reaching for your hand.
the mountain’s affection for the sunflower field
radical, abstract, abundant
folding laundry, looking at each other’s eyes
Quietly your self worth diminishes
like salt on a pavement
your voice loses its tone, forgotten.
Who will remember you?
A shadow in a system.
You cry. New tide comes,
covers the muddy river bank.
The white egret returns.
You survive another day.
Note: Last week Mrs. Abstract and I and our two friends toured Andy Warhol’s art Exhibit at MOMA in San Francisco, California. Very interesting.
Books I’m currently reading: Moby Dick by Melville and Paris, 7 A.M. by Liza Wieland, a novel about a young Elizabeth Bishop.
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