an old writer and his words

  • REFLECTIONS

    When I gaze into the mirrorI see an aging man that I knowshould not be me and yetI know that he could only be me.I want to know just what I didto fall into disfavor with the gods,why they stripped me ofthe immortality I knewI once had, now gone.I know there is no getting itback…

    Lou Faber

  • HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU

    The mirror and I broke up this morning. We’d been together quite a while but I was tired of its refusal to show the real me and not some aged version the mirror created. The mirror, of course as it always did, said it was not at fault, but it always says that. It tried…

    Lou Faber

  • CHANGES

    Each morning after arisingI look in the mirrorI imagine everything is the same as the day beforeI imagine everything has changedf rom the day before.I do ask the mirror what itbelieves has changed, what itbelieves has stayed the same.Most days it says nothing, merelystares back at me, mocking.Occasionally the mirror will concedethat it is another…

    Lou Faber

  • UMMON’S ONE TREASURE

    A master willtell you that there isa great Buddhist treasurethat you must seek.He will not tell youwhere to find itbut if you ask himhe will bow and thenhand you a mirror. A reflection on Case 92 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)

    Lou Faber

  • THREE HAIKU

    music of kotogently washes angry wallsspring robin is born lightening etches cloudsarching over the cityspring rain approaches rising sun castsits glow on the shirred mirrorof the reservoir

    Lou Faber

  • IN PASSING

    There are always eerie momentswhen you learn of the deathof someone you knew brieflyseveral decades before.You struggle to remember allyou can of your interactions,places, events, even conversations.But the departed always seems justas they looked when you lastsaw them hardly older, hardto imagine death has claimedsomeone you see as young,while your mirror constantlyreminds you of how…

    Lou Faber

  • THE VEIL OF TIME

    I still search for you behind the veilof time; I cannot look away.I wonder what you saw that night,what you felt in that unexpected,unwanted moment you couldn’t escape.I know I am struggling to reach intoa world I do not yet wish to enter,but all I recall are your eyes, notas they were that night but…

    Lou Faber

  • DONGSHAN’S “WHERE IS THE FAULT?”

    When you look in the mirrordo you see yourself?Is the you in the mirroranother you?If you say it is merelya reflection of youare you a reflection of it?You imagine you are realand the mirror youimagines he is real.Both real, both illusions. A reflection on Case 78 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (True Dharma Eye) 正法眼蔵

    Lou Faber

  • A SMALL WONDER

    It always amazes me thateveryone around me seems to agewhile I know that I have notand that it is the mirror’s liesthat try and make me think I have.True, my body cannot do muchof what it once could but thatI know is less a factor of ageand more one of over use,for even the best…

    Lou Faber

  • IN THE PROPER ORDER

    You would think that when you have hadthree fathers they would have hadthe decency to die in the order in whichthey came into your life, that is, after all,the natural order of things or the logical one.My original, who I found more than two decadesafter he finally found peace in 1987 is nothingmore that an…

    Lou Faber