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WHEN THE BELL SOUNDS
Does coyote come down the mountain, or does the mountain rise up under coyote? Do either hear the sound of the Temple bell? Pull on the robe against the heat, tie tight the obi to be freed of the leash. A reflection on case 16 of the Mumonkan (Gateless Gate)
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ANCESTORS
He clearly remembers standing on the edge peering down into the almost bottomless canyon, listening to the narrow river slide across the rocks thrown down by its walls over millennia. He was a visitor here, knew he would stay only briefly, then leave, his spirit hiding among the rocks in the nearby mountains, staring down…
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MORNING
one thousand fingers gently fold one thousand cranes our tears are countless. red sandstone plateaus coyote stalks through scrub pine chindi howl assent in the Norway Spruce pine cones threaten to descend. Squirrels sit waiting.
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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.
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AWAITING
He strains mightily to hear the sound of a wolf. He knows the voice of coyote well, and here they are ever-present. But wolf is a different creature. He knows coyote will try to take the shape and voice of wolf. But an elder such as he can tell the difference. Wolf is his totem,…
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CHORUS
The man sits, waiting patiently for the wolf to arrive. It has been far too long, this wait, as the Wolf has his lair in the distant mountain, and has little use for the people in the city, in the place where the man sits waiting. The man is sure they met once, although he…
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STAR WALKER
His brother said that if you left the windows open at night, the ghosts would come in and might steal your soul. He didn’t care, he wanted to hear the song the stars sang every night, to see them come down and move in pairs across the mesa, for stars, he knew turned orange when…
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AMONG ELDERS
I sit outside, on the mesa having watched the mauve, fuchsia and coral sky finally concede to night. The two orange orbs sit twenty yards away, staring back and in this moment coyote and I have known each other for moments, and for generations, and we are content. Coyote tells me he was once an…
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WINDSONG
Far out on the mesa the wind sings an alluring song to the melody of the wooden flute. You can sit among the sage, and like the orange orbed coyote around you, stare up at the moon and look for the spirits of the ancient ones that lived in these mountains, the tricksters who…
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THE TRICKSTER RESPONDS
The man liked to cry out into the night, asking questions for which he knew there could be no answers, or if there were, they would be things he would never wish to hear. The coyotes in the hills would listen to his pleas, his entreaties, his moaning, and they would remember the spirits of…
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an old writer and his words 