an old writer and his words

  • A SOUTHERN WINTER (HAIKU)

    In the dark of night clouds gavotte across the sky we awake to rain There is no snow here – we dream of Fujiyama imagine winter. A thousand cranes rise take wing over the city smiling at the sun.

    Lou Faber

  • EOS

    Tomorrow the morning will arrive as it always does, eating the last vestiges of night, painting the sky in puce and crimson. It will foretell the rain that will carry our dreams down the hill and into storm sewers, eventually to wash into the lake. But in that moment when the sky is ablaze, none…

    Lou Faber

  • THICKNESS OF DAY

    The clouds are thick today, each merging into the next like an ill-woven blanket, stitches dropped, but still not admitting light. None assumes familiar shapes, none require more than a passing glance, though none promise much-needed rain. Today clouds simply cast a pall and we are left to bear their omnipresent reluctance to be of…

    Lou Faber

  • CLOUDY

    They promised rain yesterday. It did not rain yesterday. The sky grew dark, the clouds gathered, convening, no doubt, to consider rain but clearly they did not reach a consensus. They say it will rain today, but we have no reason at all to believe them, for they are wispy and darting around under the…

    Lou Faber

  • ARRIVAL

    Night arrives, the rain arrives, and the sun is washed away to dry beyond the horizon and there to prepare to reappear.

    Lou Faber

  • MU MONKAN

    Walking on the road today, I didn’t see the Buddha and thus had no need to kill him. I did find what I thought to be a dog’s Buddha nature, but it proved to be nothing- ness, so I walked on through the gate that led exactly nowhere. This evening it rained and I picked…

    Lou Faber

  • THIS IS HOW WE MOURN

    This is how we mourn: we don’t berate the clouds for gathering, nor begrudge the rain’s ultimate descent. Our tears fall to the earth as well, and there are moments when we need the gray, moments when the sun would be an unwelcomed interloper. This is how we mourn: we wipe the walls clean of…

    Lou Faber

  • EVENTIDE

    The sky is the leaden gray that denies the sun and threatens the moon’s arrival. It presses down on the roofs of the tallest buildings, wraps them in a depression those on the street below feel without need of looking up. This is a teasing sky, a drop here, there, until we know we are…

    Lou Faber

  • BORROWED LIGHT

    The gray, velvet curtain of clouds parted ever so briefly last night revealing a moon, growing more full of herself, as she peered out. I was there to see her, the form of smile shared between us despite the chill of the too winter-like spring. This morning the sad drooping daffodils said they saw her…

    Lou Faber

  • THE SKY

    The sky is the leaden gray that denies the sun and threatens the moon’s arrival. It presses down on the roofs of the talest buildings, wraps them in a depression those on the street below feel without need of looking up. This is a teasing sky- a drop here, there, until we know we are…

    Lou Faber