an old writer and his words

  • GYOZAN’S HIGH AND LOW 法眼蔵 二十三

    Stand on the hill and look into the valley. Stand in the valley and look upon the hill. Do you see yourself in either place, do you see yourself in both or are they one place hidden from your vision. A reflection on case 86 of the Shobogenzo (Dogen’s True Dharma Eye)

    Lou Faber

  • ON AGING

    Ensconced on the couch, the cat hears a bird singing outside the window. Once, she would have pressed her face against the screen, imagining a great chase. Now she listens, content to let the birds sing into the fading sun.

    Lou Faber

  • EARLY ARRIVAL

    Autumn came on hard today the drop in temperature not unexpected in these climes, but still unwanted, forcing the closing of windows. Still, as the afternoon faded, I shouted toward the window a reminder not to go gently into night to fight the soon approaching dark. The squirrel on the lawn outside the window stood,…

    Lou Faber

  • LUNA

    The perigee moon hangs heavily over the city clinging to the horizon as though it wishes to flee deep into the night turning away the attention in inevitably draws. We are pulled toward it by some deeply felt force that we know we dare not question, for we must honor the moon’s secrets as we…

    Lou Faber

  • IN VINO VERITAS

    He is convinced he is simply squeezing the sun out of each plump orb. The sun lies within, but he lets it kiss its skin goodbye before pouring the sunshine into the oak barrels where the sun will have time to concentrate until it slips over the lips perhaps on a cold autumn day and…

    Lou Faber

  • COCOON

    She imagines life is much like a cocoon in which she must remain or risk instant death. She does not recall coming here but know she must have done so in the not too distant past. That is the problem with cocoons, there is no memory prior to finding yourself within, but she doesn’t mind…

    Lou Faber

  • THE BLINK

    In the elemental scheme of things we humans are, at best, middling. We are minute in the scale of the universe, our time not even a glimmer, and as we age, time contracts, but only in the shortening forward direction. But pity the poor hydrogen-7 isotope whose life is likely over in 30 yactoseconds, absorbing…

    Lou Faber

  • WALKING

    Today was downright exhausting, and my hour long walk along the river left me dripping and drooping. It wasn’t different than most days, same time, same place, and the usual 756 miles, according to my old friend Orion, who was watching from his usual perch, unseen, as he prefers it by day. When I was…

    Lou Faber

  • SHINKANSEN VIEW

    At first it was a checkerboard of ponds neatly arrayed, reflecting the sun, the work of man, for God so rarely plays geometrician with creation, less often still using right angles. Soon enough green blades reach up through the shirred surface, random, reaching for a sun they can never touch. It is a field soon,…

    Lou Faber

  • CASTING THUNDER

    The night was ripped by the lightning, the thunder piercing our dreams, awakening us to the shadow’s play on the skylight shades. As I slip back into sleep the gods turn their backs and continue to argue well into morning.

    Lou Faber