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ONE STEP TOO FAR
“As you get older,” he said,“the body grows remarkablyadept at telling you whenyou have done too much,or done something you shouldn’t.” What he didn’t say, the criticalpiece of advice I wish I heard,is that the body only speakswell after the fact, a lecturesurely, but never a warning. No one wants to go a stepshort, to…
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A NOVEL IDEA
If I were a character in a novel, sayby Kawabata, that evening we mettwenty years ago, I would haveplaced my hand lightly on your shoulder,and I would have felt a heat,embers of a passion that would,in hours, leave me consumed by it. I was a middle-aged, soon to bedivorced man on his first datein thirty…
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NIGHT APPROACHES
The clouds this eveningare the deep gray that so longto be black, but the retreatedsun just below the horizonlingers long enough to deny them. The space, shrinking, betweenthe clouds, is the gray of promisethat the night will soon deny,and the birds who take overthe preserve, chant their vespers,each in his or her own language,uncommon tongues…
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ON THIS DAY
It is December, and in thispart of Florida that simply meansthat a morning jacket is advised,and rain comes as a bit of a surprise.A neighbour was surprised to be toldthat they decorated like a Northerner,but assumed that it was a bit of a dig,though they thought the inflatable snowmanand reindeer captured the season’s spirit.We laugh…
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ERSE WHILE
Growing up, I never imaginedthat I was Lithuanian, I mean Imight have as easily been from Mars. And it was only in my dreamsthat Gaelic was an ancestral tongue,not one my ancestors spoke,at least those who hadn’t yetmade the unthinkable moveto Norfolk and the frigid sea. Now I am all of those, and I knowthat…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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ISAN’S TIME 鐵笛倒吹 十六
A cold dayhow many other winterscan you remember,how many future winterscan your mind grasp? Can you hold yesterdayin the palm of your handcan you wrap tomorrowaround your thumb? Between the palmsin gassholies all life and being. A reflection on case 16 of the Iron Flute Koans
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an old writer and his words 