an old writer and his words

  • SEAL SONG

    A young woman holds a mirror out to the sea as she sings a simple, sweet song to a cloud which lingers overhead. You want to ask her about this but you are afraid – afraid that she will forget the song and the small cloud that is your only shade will slip into the…

    Lou Faber

  • BAREFOOT

    He says his favorite clouds all wear size seven shoes. He knows she believes she once saw a paisley rainbow and will never forget it. She wears size seven shoes and her tears can be torrential, yet they can still nurture the first flowers of spring. He imagines her a butterfly sitting on the back…

    Lou Faber

  • BASHO’S DREAMS

    on the sacred lake lotus blossoms grasp the sun Buddha steps lightly   Buddha cares little for the endless prostrations preferring Summer   setting summer sun turns the river to purple moon comes from hiding

    Lou Faber

  • THE HERMIT

    The hermit lives in the shadow of the great mountain listening to the symphony of the bluebird and the wild Rose engulfed by the sky, the meandering stream his constant companion. I live in a city in a sea of city dwellers each of us prisoners marching from cell to cell, with passing nods we…

    Lou Faber

  • DREAM WALKER

    I listen for you in the night, your breathing sets the rhythm of my dreams. It was not always like this. Much as the cat craves a gentle stroking of her back, I long to trace your spine, measure each vertebra by the length of my caress, but I don’t want to pull you fitfully…

    Lou Faber

  • LOVER

    There is a moment just after the  lights are turned off, when the ticking of the clock on the nightstand is amplified, reverberating off the skylights, when the heat of your body is a blanket from which I never wish to emerge.

    Lou Faber

  • MEETING BUDDHA ON THE ROAD

    In my dreams last night, I thought I came across the Buddha while off wandering somewhere I could not recognize. I thought long and hard about following Linji’s prescription and killing this Buddha, but while lost in my contemplation the Buddha took up his keisaku, said, “if you cannot follow the simplest of directions, if you…

    Lou Faber

  • SENSING NIGHT

    “Turn on the light so I can hear you,” she says, and I reach for the switch across the room. “Please whisper,” I respond “and I may be able to see my way to the window.” I draw up the shade and in the dim glow of the night’s light I feel the braying of…

    Lou Faber

  • EMPTY SACKS WILL NEVER STAND UPRIGHT

    There are nights when the song of a single cricket can pull you away from sleep. She says that she has heard that not all Angels have wings and neither of them is sure how you would know if you met a bodhisattva. He searches the mail every day, for a letter from an unknown…

    Lou Faber

  • TAOS EVENING

    On the mesa between El Prado and Tres Piedras after the sun has been swallowed by  the mountains, to the east a fire burns. Countless stars stare down on the shivering sage. The scorpion lunges for the distant hill. The fire grows behind the mountain, the orange disk rises slowly. The smallest stars flee Luna’s…

    Lou Faber