an old writer and his words

  • MUSEUMS NO MORE

    Travel guides always wantto send me to museums of art,of history, of culture, of science.I appreciate their guidance but Iwould prefer to spend my timevisiting zoos, looking at animalsand ignoring the placardspainfully detailing what I am seeing.I have been to countlessmuseums and while each offeredbeauty and knowledge, eachdemanded that I needed to learn,to interpret, to…

    Lou Faber

  • NANYUE’S IT IS NOT LIKE SOMETHING

    You may spend yearscombing through the Dharmato find a kernel of enlightenment.It will be a futile searchfor no such kernel exists.But if your combingis woven into your practiceenlightenment mightjust stumble upon you. A reflection on Case 101 of the Shobogenzo Koans 正法眼蔵 (True Dharma Eye)

    Lou Faber

  • 2:15

    At precisely 2:15 tomorrow afternoonsomething will happen somewhereand neither you nor I will be thereto see it, nor will we know that it happened.Neither of us can say for certainwhat we will be doing at that time,and perhaps where we will be thenThere is a kind of sadness in thisso many possibilities disappearingbefore they can…

    Lou Faber

  • IF ONLY

    Were we birds we wouldhave our talons dug so deeplyinto the soil, our wings unableto lift us into a waiting skyfrom our gravitation prison.The egrets peer down at usfrom a thousand hued blue skycloudless again this dayas a maleficent sun glaresdown on us as we slowlybake in the oven we createdby our malfeasant stewardshipof nature’s…

    Lou Faber

  • SOLDIERS

    We marchedfor hoursgoingnowhere We satswelteringin classroomspretendingto learn Six weekslaterthey told uswe werewarriors Our haircould beginto grow back Heavensave us fromendless war,fromourselves. First published in Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, Vol. 13A publication of the Laurel Review

    Lou Faber

  • DOWNSIDE UP

    For just one dayI want to look at everythingfrom the opposite side,the back or the bottom only.The coffee cup from whichI have sipped a thousand cappuccinoshas initials and I now wantto know who shaped it,how they did the glazeand what they saw in its pattern.So many things will tell mewhere they are from, eventhose who…

    Lou Faber

  • THIS TOO

    When I hear “this tooshall pass,” I hopeat least for a whilethey are not talking about me.The flowers outsidedo not ask such questions,too busy drawing eyesto really care.And the now deadpalm tree in the yardhas become stoicjust watching,always watching.

    Lou Faber

  • HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU

    The mirror and I broke up this morning. We’d been together quite a while but I was tired of its refusal to show the real me and not some aged version the mirror created. The mirror, of course as it always did, said it was not at fault, but it always says that. It tried…

    Lou Faber

  • BEGINNINGS

    Some, myself once includedwonder where time and space beganfor all things must have a beginningif they are to have an endas we are certain we will too soon.I don’t stop and wonder whythat matters, how knowledge wouldchange anything at all.Species we have rendered extinctwould remain so, Van Gogh’s paintingswould see no less beautiful,Beethoven’s carefully crafted…

    Lou Faber

  • THE FINAL SCENE

    For far too long he had beena marionette dancing to a tunehe could not hear, always staying silent,lost in a kabuki theater of the absurd.But he had grown tired of performingat their every demand, his life livedperpetually on call, no time truly his.He was drained by them, empty,not that they cared for they knewthe adulation…

    Lou Faber