• FOOTHILLS

    The clouds well upover the foothillscasting a gray pall,bearing the angry spiritsof the chindi who danceamid the scrub juniper.Brother Serra, was thiswhat you found, wanderingalong the coast, tendingthe odd sheep, Indianand whatever elsecrossed your path? The blue birdhopping across the dried grassespuffing its grey breastplate and capesitting back, its long tail feathersa perfect counterbalance.It stares…


  • ETA

    So many of the late arrivals tonightare egrets, the Cattles long inamong the reeds and brush sharingspace, only reluctantly, with the ibis. It is their snowy cousins who arriveas the horizon is a fading bandof orange gold dissipating under thefaint, unyielding eye of Venus,and seem shocked when theyare turned away with flap of wingand cry,…


  • IT’S ABOUT TIME

    My first inclination, in factmy strong desire, when he asks mewhat time it is, is not to consultmy watch, but to say that we livein an age of unprecedented uncertainty,an era of division and incivility,and days fraught with risk thateach might be the last. I know he wants to know the hourand the minute, but…


  • RUYGE’S ULTIMATE STAGE 鐵笛倒吹 二十八

    If you answer the questionI will ask you anothereach more difficult. If you enter a roomand catalog its contentsthere will always be a doorleading to yet another room,another inventory to be takento determine what is thereand what is missing. It is only when you enteran empty room,that you will find all things. A reflection on…


  • THE POEM

    The poem, all too often,suffers from a solitariness thatborders on despair, alonein a world that otherwise offersno peace or quiet contemplaton. The poem does not wish this,it prefers to be the centerof attention in the midstof all that is happeningat any given moment. The poem never expectedto have to struggle so muchfor even the smallest…


  • WINTER

    As I stare out the window and watchthe snow slowly build on the limbsof the now barren crab apple, paintingit with a whiteness that bears heavily,giving the smaller branches a betterview of the ground in which theirfruit of the summer lies buried. I am forced to wonder if the treecontinues to watch me, if its…


  • ANGELS

    He says he cannot believe in angelsbecause he has never seen one.I do not believe in his sort of angels, but notfor lack of visual confirmation, ratherthat I live in a world that nowis so deeply in need, that an angelmight be our last, best hope, butthe scope of angelic miracles isnot likely wide enough…


  • ON THIS NIGHT

    On this nighthe walks silentlyinto her dream uninvited,but she is usedto the incursions.On other nights itis she who sidlesup to him in the depthsof dreaming, eachslipping awayahead of dawn.On rare nights eachenters the dreamsof the other, pathscrossing atthe synaptic border.On those nightsshe looks for him,he for her, eachgrows fearfulthe he or shewill be trapped,alone, when…


  • NIGHTLY PRAYERS

    My mother always told me to saymy prayers before bed, which was oddgiven that she never prayed, and didn’tas far as we could tell, believe in a deity. I knew, as my Rabbi taught, that you do notseek something for yourself in prayer,and world peace and harmony did notseem on the horizon despite my entreaties.…


  • WE WERE SPECIAL

    We were a special generation,that’s what they told us, and althoughwe had no real idea who they were,we drank the Kool-Aid and believed them. We got liberal educations, weresmarter than our parents,and went off to the wars that theystarted for us, did enough drugsto numb the pain of our existence,and became first class working drones.…