an old writer and his words

  • DRAPERY

    It was draped over the fence, a bridge for squirrels who would otherwise would go through the chain. There’s a sadness to its needles, many burying themselves in the accumulated snow, cast off by the great Spruce as extraneous, an old coneless branch, “that is the reason” the trunk whispers in the wind “why I…

    Lou Faber

  • KYOSEI’S THIRTY BLOWS 正法眼蔵 四十二

    Wherever you stand still you can see the rainbow but walk to find its end this one or that one and it will be gone on your arrival. Sit in the fine mist and look at the earth – how many colors do you see? A reflection on case 42 of the Shobogenzo (Dogen’s True…

    Lou Faber

  • ROAD FOOD

    In Hawaii I could stare for hours at a Taro field, the bent back of a farmer, and the same a gentle fold of spine I saw from the Shinkansen, Tokyo to Osaka amid the fields of yellow shoots, later rice in some bowl, perhaps even mine, or in Antwerp as the chef patiently picked…

    Lou Faber

  • POLI SCIENCE

    She isn’t used to the cold, she never will be, and she hates it with the sort of passion she once reserved for people of a different political philosophy than hers. She grew up here, but she left. She has never regretted the departure. She visits only in late spring or in the heart of…

    Lou Faber

  • NICE JOB

    It is stall after stall of tomates de Provence, choux wishing to be kale, peches, small and barely containing their juice. Courgettes beckon, pommes de terre call out their aerieal cousins, haricots quietly suggest a citron aussi. Walking along the boulevard a tourist obviously, without bags or cart, I get polite nods that say me…

    Lou Faber

  • ANTWERP

    It is seven in the morning Antwerp arises slowing in winter the small bar along seldom used quays of Schelde is almost empty, one old man tottering on his stool swaying to breath head pressed on the counter. Young couple, she brown haired pale white skin against white sweater, he long blond woven into a…

    Lou Faber

  • SENTINEL

    The streetlight is a nocturnal Sentinel staring down. In some cities in other parts of this it could tell of the cries of drunks stumbling from closing bars, ambulances flashing in its cast shadows. On the street with sleeping homes it tells only of the snow that cradles its base.

    Lou Faber

  • IN SOLITARY

    A solitary lentil wrapped in its sauce mantle, having escaped the fork for the duration of the meal, stares up at me, perhaps defiantly my wife suspects it is merely bored at having been moved around so. I stare back at it in what I hope is my most threatening look as the waiter hovers…

    Lou Faber

  • BASHO DOES NOT TEACH 鐵笛倒吹 八十

    There is a woman who asks no questions, who fears neither birth nor death. What can you teach her? The wise man offers no lesson but observes closely and gains great wisdom. What can you teach one who already knows. What can you learn with a fully open mind. In a clockless world there is…

    Lou Faber

  • STEPSISTERS

    Perhaps tonight the slightly waning moon will bathe us in her presence. That presupposes the clouds, so very jealous of late, allow her to appear. They, and the unending winter, are the evil stepsisters, and they have neither justice nor compassion for the moon or for us. And so, to save their maleficent case, I…

    Lou Faber