I look at the photo,
me holding my granddaughter.
Between us we are 57 years old,
she has just celebrated
her first birthday.
In the photograph we
are both laughing hysterically,
in the photo
we are both young children.
Time
ON THIS DAY
For on this day there is no peace,
for on this day some are laid to rest,
for on this day others shed endless tears,
for on this day many are wringing hands,
for on this day many offer hollow words,
for on this day they know they should act
for on this day they know they will not,
for on this day we think about tomorrow,
for on this day we think of those without tomorrows,
for on this day the sun did rise,
for on this day the earth did rotate,
for on this day God was elsewhere,
for on this day we were all too human.
In memory of the lives lost and changed forever at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
SOZAN’S FOUR DON’TS 鐵笛倒吹 九十二
You may seek to follow
the path of the dove,
for a fool knows many roads.
You may wrap yourself
in fine linen, an infant
wears only his skin
and knows this moment
is already gone.
Think long before you speak
of how to walk
along the path, of where it leads.
The baby says nothing,
will not speak of where
he has been,
where he is going, for to him
there is only here,
and silence
is descriptive enough.
A reflection on Case 92 of The Iron Flute koans.
RECALL NOTICE
It wasn’t so much that
it slipped away this morning,
I’ve come to expect that,
and I know there is absolutely
nothing I could do to stop it.
It wasn’t even that I
couldn’t recall what it was
precisely that was gone,
for that is the nature
of departure and longing.
It was more that I now
cannot determine what
it was the replaced it,
and my mind is supposed
to be engaged in a
net zero sum memory game,
for that is what
gives me hope for tomorrow.
FAIREST OF THEM ALL
Once I was
six foot four
with long blond hair
that would
have made
Fabio jealous,
but sadly
I woke up.
Now in the mirror
I am
a balding
five foot six,
middle aged man
who wants
only to return
to the me
of my dreams.
HIGH DESERT DREAM
The mountains rise, bluer
blacker than real
against a faded sky.
The ancestors have fled these hills,
no orange eyes stare out of the night,
no voices of the trickster
take up chorus against the stars.
YIDDISH
My grandmother lapsed
into Yiddish only on special occasions
“where other words won’t fit”
she said, where there is
no English to describe
the indescribable, blessed
be He, but we knew
that it was merely
a convenient way to keep
us out of the conversation,
while they clucked.
Mah Johng is a game
that can only be played
in Yiddish, she said,
to hell with thousands
of years of Chinese history.
She remembers the Golem
she met him once
on Fourteenth Street
when she still had
the liquor store.
She thought it strange
that he wanted gin
and not Slivovitz
but Golem can be strange
under the right circumstances,
and he did speak Yiddish.
