I have discovered
a small advantage
of slowly losing
my sight.
Each day
the image
in the mirror
is less clear,
wrinkles
disappear
and I don’t
look quite as old
as I know
that I am, and
you’re looking
better as well.
image
THE SAINT OF UNCOUNTED NAMES
A desert again,
always a desert
and she the saint
of uncounted names,
her crying eases, no
smile appears for this
Madonna of the coyotes,
her orange-orbed eyes
shuttered against the
slowly retreating sun.
Once her tears watered
the desert sands, mixed
with the blood of a Christ
now long forgotten, trans-
substantiated into a spirit
we formed in our image,
no longer we in his.
The Blessed Mother
watches, holding hope,
holding space, holding
a serenity we cannot
fathom in our search
for divine justification.
She remembers, she mourns,
for what ought to be, and waits
for the windwalkers
to pull the blanket
of stars over her.
First published in Liquid Imagination, Issue 52, October 2022
http://liquidimagination.silverpen.org/
STRANGE BEAUTY
There is a strange beauty
in the slow loss of sight,
for there is a progressive
transition, a discovery
of much that went unheard,
unfelt, missing in the glare
of the need to see, to categorize
and organize, memories
neatly arranged in an array
of curated visual files.
But without sight what once
was cast aside as noise is
an intricate tapestry of sound
and undistracted, you begin
to see the individual threads
to see deeply into the art
and craft of the unknown weaver.
Without sight, you so often
store images in two dimensions
but now requiring touch,
everything is three dimensional
of necessity and the world is
infinitely more complex
and yes beautiful than you recalled.
And the darkness of night, which
marked a border that dared not
be fully crossed grows meaningless
and hours once lost may again
now demand to be lived.
First published in Bard and Prose, June 2022
https://bardandprose.com/category/poetry/
ANTISOCIAL MEDIA
The meaning is simple,
a data point here,
another there,
an image,
an algorithm
words written
in jest,
in anger,
regret,
withdrawal,
cancellation,
account closed,
remaining shadows,
way back,
pixels always moving,
real friends
once touched,
I am
an avatar to you,
I have erased
you from memory.
KANNON’S STATUE 鐵笛倒吹 語十八
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 Buddha
will never be
your Buddha.
A reflection on Case 58 of the Iron Flute Koans.
IN HIS IMAGE
He said the assignment is
an easy one for this class,
write a piece, poem or story,
your choice, but focused
on a single metaphor. Oh,
and to make it interesting,
that metaphor should be
the last pet you owned or
currently own, and if you’ve
never been blessed with a pet,
use an ocelot or a lynx.
How hard could it be, I thought,
I have a cat, she will be
my metaphor, and so I sat,
picked up pen and paper
and absolutely nothing came.
The cat watched me, heard me
mutter under, I thought,
my breath, then gently mewed:
“Cats cannot be metaphors,
you should know that, for we
are unique in nature, unless
of course you wish to write
about God, for we know that we
were created in his image.
MIRROR IMAGE
Each morning when I look
into the mirror I imagine
I see me, but of course that
is impossible, for in that moment
only the mirror sees me
and I see the mirror.
How deluded I must be
to assume that I look at all
like the mirror, but it is,
I know, just such delusions
that enable my sense of self,
and that is the grandest illusion.
A morning will come when I
look into the glass and nothing
is there or a face I have never
before seen and the mirror
will laugh, as will I, at this
game we have played for years.
ENSO WHAT
Today I again took up the brush,
carefully mixed the sumi-e ink
and with hand poised over a sheet
of anticipating rice paper waited,
knowing that the moment for a stroke
was imminent but not yet at hand,
and I dare not force it for brush
painting is a practice that cannot
be compelled, a gentle merger
of idea, brush, ink and paper,
and if any are missing, a sadness
that can only be irreversible.
Today the brush considered the ink
and decided it was not a good day
and so I cleaned it carefully, set it
aside with the block of ink,
and rolling the rice paper, promised
it, myself, that we would repeat
this exercise until the moment was
right and the image was ready to appear.
TOUCH
I would reach out
in touch you
but as it is
my fingers
barely
reach the keyboard.
I would take
your picture
the next time
I see you, but
it would appear
instantly, no waiting
for someone to tell me
as you were merely
a blurred image
appearing days later
pulled from an envelope.
Perhaps I’ll leave
a posting on your
digital wall
and simply hope
you are still alive
somewhere just
out of reach.
WITH A CAUSE
She says if you could only
peel back the photograph, you could
read the entire story that lies beneath.
It is deeper than the image below which
it lies trapped, and wider, imbued with a meaning
the image could not capture, just as,
she says frowning, there are no words
for parts of the picture, a symbiosis
that we of unitary senses cannot unite.
This one, pointing to a crucifix, shows him
where he ought to be, the pain, his pain
apparent, but so much deeper than
any image or sculptor’s hand can fashion.
Undeserved pain, not by sacrileges, by rebellion
but he would understand it, he would
revel in it, for he was the greatest rebel
and he would easily peel back the picture
in step wholly into the story beneath.
an old writer and his words 