from After Ikkyu – 3 – I’ve wasted too much moonlight. Breast beating. I’ll waste no more moonlight, the moon bullied by clouds drifts west in her imponderable arc, snared […]

Zona My work piles up, I falter with disease. Time rushes toward me – it has no brakes. Still, the radishes are good this year. Run them through butter, add […]

Note to self: remember What Emerson said of Thoreau— That he loved the low In nature: Muskrats And crickets, suckers And frogs. Not stars. Songs of the carnal, Songs of […]

Walking on the Shore in Late August I look out over the muddy lake. All at once I see a fin rise, what alertness! All my brain power pours toward […]

The Lost War The saved were all ingratitude, The lost would not lie down: Reborn, their sacred rage renewed, They razed the fallen town. And in the graveyard made their […]

The White Box In the white box you keep hidden away a white salamander waits with a flame in his small hands. How bright the fire! How long his breath […]

ZAZEN There is nothing out there to help you. The bird is inside. Pick up your brush, and maybe you should close your eyes. Tom Crawford from Caging the Robin, […]

Grief In the night I brush my teeth with a razor Kevin Young from Book of Hours, Alfred A. Knopf, 2014 Grief The borrowed handkerchief where she wept returned to […]

Crane Red-winged blackbirds sway on willow branches. Air bends to accommodate the slight weight. Day dies in the west. The crane, rune for soul, spears a minnow with its dark […]

Listen to presences inside poems. Let them take you where they will. Follow these private hints and never leave the premises. Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), from Unseen Rain, trans. Coleman Barks […]