an old writer and his words

  • VERITAS

    It is the promise of the grape that lures us, that allows us to imagine the glass stained purple, or a deep golden yellow, an alluring pink. It may be accompanied by words that suggest the approach of a moment not to be forgotten, deep, vibrant, tobacco, stone fruit, a veritable catalog to entice us,…

    Lou Faber

  • DREAM

    She took the flower, placed it gently, arranged just so, between the pages of the giant tome, and closed the book setting it carefully back on the shelf where it would remain until someone, seeing its leathered spine might pull it out, blow off the dust and open to that page, and look into her…

    Lou Faber

  • STARING AT NIRVANA

    The great blue heron stares at the shirred surface of the pond, paying no attention to the ibis pecking around her, ignoring the traffic passing on the road, pausing now and again to marvel how the humans on foot and in cars cannot see that on a November day the quiet stillness of the water…

    Lou Faber

  • MORNING, ATTENDANT

    Morning would find him sitting calmly, cross-legged, under the apple tree that sat on the edge of the park, staring up at a small branch and carefully watching the bud begin to open, ignoring all who passed. Morning would find him sitting calmly, cross-legged, under the apple tree watching the fragile blossom open, staring at…

    Lou Faber

  • SHISHUANG’S THIS SIDE AND THAT SIDE

    You like being here, but you suspect you would like being there as well, if not more than being here. This puzzles you, for you fear leaving here to go there, in case when you arrive there you don’t like being there and would rather be here. You should sit and ponder which is better…

    Lou Faber

  • ATOP THE POLE 無門關 四十六

    Sitting atop a hundred foot pole you are convinced there are only two directions: pole and down. Old Osho asks: “How will you proceed?” and you stare back at this lunatic. “How will you proceed?” he repeats. You release the pole and step slowly away, looking in all ten directions before you, only then do…

    Lou Faber

  • HARMONY

    A young woman steps from the shower and wraps herself in a large blue towel. “I don’t want you to see me,” she says, to the young man standing in the door of the small bathroom, “look away for now.” He reminds her they are married. She says, “One thing has nothing to do with…

    Lou Faber

  • STATUS QUO

    It does so little good to wonder why things are not           as I wish them           as they should be           as they seem to me           as they once were. Things always are, either more nor less,…

    Lou Faber

  • KANNON’S STATUE

    If you meet the Bodhisattva you don’t ask someone to carve the image from your mind. To the carver, she weighs but an ounce and can be carried on his fingertip but try and lift her and you will not be able to move her from her place. All Buddhas are one Buddha but his…

    Lou Faber

  • GABRIEL, AT HOME IN OHIO

    I saw an angel settle slowly over Akron dancing in the smoke rising out of the stacks of the ancient plant. It flitted, darting in and out of the gray haze, one moment she, the next he, and as the sun settled slowly down, for an instant no more than a cherub. It was not,…

    Lou Faber