an old writer and his words

  • DEEP WITHIN

    The finches sweep from bush to feeder in a gentle inverted parabola appear head high with a pride reserved for those who fly. The chain link fence is for them no barrier but a honeycomb of perches, full on a warm February afternoon, their song threatening to silence the heart of winter.

    Lou Faber

  • A MOVING MIND 無門關 二十九

    Do not be a foolish monk stare up at the sky is that could moving? The leaves dance on the morning breeze, is the wind moving? take a picture of the tree a moment of time frozen There is no motion of the tree, none of the wind only the mind moves. A reflection on…

    Lou Faber

  • NATURALIA NON SUNT TURPIA

    When did we stop being of the soil and begin to fear it, to tell our children not to touch the ground, it is dirty where once it was only dirt, and we put in our mouths, from time to time if only to drive our mothers crazy. She says if you are going to…

    Lou Faber

  • HIGH WIRE

    It is a precarious balance, really, more an exercise in tottering and hearing than in standing still. Some prefer stasis, others, I included, find that leads inevitably to a loss of energy, to an entropy from which it is difficult to escape. I don’t walk along the edge of the precipice, but I do. peer…

    Lou Faber

  • DAIZUI SEES A TURTLE 鐵笛倒吹 十七

    If you see a turtle does it seem odd it wears bones outside? Does the turtle live within these bones and where do you go to hide from bright light.. If you place a sandal on your head which end will be walking? A reflection on Case 17 of the Iron Flute Koans

    Lou Faber

  • WINTER MEMORY

    As I stare out the window and watch the snow slowly build on the limbs of the now barren sugar maple, painting it with a whiteness that bears heavily giving the smaller branches a better view of the ground in which their fruit of the summer lies buried. I am forced to wonder if the…

    Lou Faber

  • WATING GAME

    We pull in to the parking lot where our mailboxes are arrayed like so many graves at Arlington, or more like the drawers in a low cost mausoleum. This is the new Postal Service, sharing the burden of the need to cut costs even at the expense of services. Standing nearby are two Sandhill Cranes…

    Lou Faber

  • MEDITATION

    A wise Buddhist teacher once told me that anything you do, if you do it mindfully, can be a form of meditation, and I have taken this into my practice, albeit with mixed success, but that is one reason they call it practice. Walking silently, following your breath in and out, aware of your feet,…

    Lou Faber

  • The spider wandered around the corner of the ceiling and wall of the bathroom, one she called a daddy longlegs, although most spiders of my acquaintance have rather long legs using my proportions as a basis for comparison, and it was my task to deal with it. It was harmless, as are most of his…

    Lou Faber

  • IMPRESSIONS

    I have no reason to venture to Tahiti for Gaugin took me there years ago, and again on a visit to Chicago and one to New York, or was it Cleveland, it hardly matters, for I know that the Tahiti of my experience no longer exists, touristed to death, itself at constant risk of drowning.…

    Lou Faber