an old writer and his words

  • SENBAZURU

    10,000 origami cranesfloated down over Tokyoeach bearing the soul of one gone in nature’s recent fury.Each crane cried freelythe tears flowing into the Sumidaforming a wave that washesback to the sea, replenishing its loss.We, too, shed our tearsand look skywardsad in the knowledgethat with each passing daystill more craneswill fill the skymore tears seep backto…

    Lou Faber

  • 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…

    Lou Faber

  • ASK OF THE SEA

    When you ask me of the sea,living, as I do, fifteen milesfrom the nearest ocean, itis not the sandy beachesof Hutchinson Island I recall,nor the crowded sandboxthat is Fort Lauderdale’s beach. If you ask me of the sea,it is perched on the horizon,far in the distance, lookingout of the kitchen window,or perhaps that of the…

    Lou Faber

  • AROMA

    What I want, no, need actually,is to remember the smells of youth.The images I can recall, but they areaged pictures, run repeatedly throughthe Photoshop of memory, andcannot be trusted only desired. The old, half ready to fall oak,in the Salt Lake City park hada faint pungency that lingeredeven as I departed my body asthe acid…

    Lou Faber

  • COUNTING TIME

    I was honored to have this recently published in Arena Magazine: A Magazine of Critical Thinking, Issue 162 from Victoria, Australia This river has for endless time flowed from the distant hills on its winding path to the waiting sea. The river has no need of clocks, cares little whether the Sun, Moon or clouds…

    Lou Faber

  • SENTENCE

    The hardest prison to escape is the one whose walls are built by the mind with fear and trepidation. It is like the open gate you dare not enter, fearing that you are leaving and will not be allowed to return. Atop a pole there are an infinite number of directions to go and only…

    Lou Faber

  • TOZAN’S NO GRASS

    As the seasons change I will stand with one foot on the highest peak and the other at the bottom of the deepest sea. But do not ask that I stand in a place where there is no Buddha, or my feet and legs shall fall away into the void. A reflection on Case 68…

    Lou Faber

  • SEASCAPE

    The shadow of the balloon passes slowly along the water’s edge and onto the beach, its gondola touches the dune as the disk of the sun drowns in the sea. First appeared in Beachfire Gathering, 1999

    Lou Faber

  • LA MER

    Next week we will walk along the beach and periodically stare out on the ocean. The waves will wash in and out, and one will look much like the last and the next. If we get out early enough, perhaps we will sit outside a café across the road from the beach and drink our…

    Lou Faber

  • TOKUSAN SPEAKS OF TEACHERS 鐵笛倒吹 二十

    Why do you seek old Masters, they have no special gift. Your lineage is the surface of the sea never still, all waves. Your teacher has no answers, his silence instructs close your ears and listen, is that his breath you hear or only your own? In is out, out is in depending on where…

    Lou Faber