an old writer and his words

  • RISHO’S POEM 鐵笛倒吹 三十語

    Have you been here – who will know? The sun and moon record your journey. What you release gathers joyously around you, what you cling to flies off on the slightest breeze, mountain and cloud enfold each other. Will you join them? A reflection on case 35 of the Iron Flute Koans

    Lou Faber

  • VESPERS

    The sun slowly starts it’s daily retreat, setting the thinning clouds ablaze. The birds return, ibis, egrets, anhinga and kite and even the limpkin march slowly across the lawn to the preserve that abuts our yard. They take up their perches on the trees and bushes and on the limpkin’s call begin quietly to recite…

    Lou Faber

  • NIL

    I was honored to have this recently published in Arena Magazine: A Magazine of Critical Thinking, Issue 162 from Victoria, Australia It was supposed to be the simplest of all the numbers nestled neatly in the center of the number line. For years its logic evaded our efforts to comprehend its simplicity. It didn’t look…

    Lou Faber

  • HEAVEN CAN WAIT

    He said, “I’m looking forward to heaven for a reason you cannot begin to imagine, and, not that I want to rush my arrival.” She said, “It’s rather audacious to assume you’ll end up there, I place the odds as at best at 50-50 and I’m being generous because I’m still in love with you.”…

    Lou Faber

  • SETTLING

    Settling into perfect stillness, each of us in our brown robes on brown chairs, benches cushions, note his entry is somewhere between the thundering of a forgotten storm or the garbage trucks crawling slowly down the street. His gray-blue shirt and jeans flash by. He is large in every dimension, even his breathing nice and…

    Lou Faber

  • GYOZAN’S OBJECTS

    If a thousand objects are arrayed before you what will you do, what do you call them? A sphere has no edges, I can reach through a cloud. Why would I try to cut a moment in two, or stuff a cloud in my pocket. A reflection on Case 27 of the Iron Flute Koans

    Lou Faber

  • LOWERING

    When they lowered my grandmother’s casket into the sodden earth, there wan’t a dry eye, shoulder or leg, around. She would’ve laughed aloud, her children always too busy for a visit now soaked to the skin in a cold, windy downpour, all but me, the one she chose to conduct the service, the funeral director…

    Lou Faber

  • ROSHI

    To arise from the earth is simple, too fall back the more difficult, for that is a journey we all seem to fear, though with no arising, there can be no falling back. When I finally admitted that I feared dying and didn’t want to be drafted to fight in that war Roshi asked me…

    Lou Faber

  • STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

    We have mastered the art of making promises, we can do so without reflection. We are not certain why God seems so reticent to join us, we were created in His image, we are constantly told, yet even when we ask, no promises seem to be forthcoming from heaven. Some say God is far too…

    Lou Faber

  • KEGON RETURNS TO DELUSIONS 鐵笛倒吹 語十二

    If a gentle flower falls from its branch do you mourn its departure. The fool attempts to place it back in the tree, the wise one waits for another flower to appear. Each is the same flower but how will the fool become wise. A reflection on case 52 of the Iron Flute Koans.

    Lou Faber