an old writer and his words

  • EMPTY SPACE

    We sit and discuss complex viscosity values and loss tangent ranges throwing in relaxation modulus for good measure, but we end up at ratios, slicing the data ever thinner, until I fog over and remember that today is the first day of summer, and the birds, bathing in the sun play like children finally freed…

    Lou Faber

  • HIBERNAL DREAMS

    Outside, even the crows are quiet this morning, seeking a warmth that eludes us all. We all know winter has finally arrived as we shiver and try so very hard to remember the warmth of summer, the bloom of the lilacs and the magnolia petals falling gently to mark our path.

    Lou Faber

  • REMEMBERED

    She said she recalled the spilled glass of wine that stained her white linen blouse. She said the city swallows people like a hungry beast that will never be sated. I taste the summer sun and the sweetness of an early rain in the Shiraz that foretells approaching winter. The city is a cat that…

    Lou Faber

  • DROPPING

    As night settles in the clouds grow uncertain of their intentions. It is hard to realize that a boundary is silently crossed and summer has retreated into the past, leaving a new season in its wake, harder to know that tomorrow we will awaken into an autumn that at first seems no different then her…

    Lou Faber

  • TEMPUS FUGIT

    The problem with bringing then into now is that now slips away and then no longer really exists. You may wish all you like for summer to remain, but Autumn demands her due and even the leaves grow tired and need that final rest. Do not deny the clouds, but treat them like a stray…

    Lou Faber

  • CELESTIAL HARMONY

    The summer sky barely pauses to consider what might be going on beneath it. Everything seems to move, there can be no stillness. Once in the rarest of whiles, the sky and the river align, and each is frozen in a stasis that defies understanding or categorization. The stars realize this and shine a moment…

    Lou Faber

  • A LIFE, LIVED

    The moon, a warm summer night, two ducks, a pond, utter stillness, a mirror weeping, deep purple velvet, a feather racing a leaf across the morning sky, a door swinging, a gate without hinges.

    Lou Faber

  • INSTRUCTIONS TO THE NOVICE HAIKUIST (AND AN EXAMPLE)

    INSTRUCTIONS: Make certain that you carefully count syllables and mention summer   EXAMPLE perhaps not a bang certainly not a whimper– summer’s arrival.

    Lou Faber

  • MINDFUL (THREE HAIKU)

    the bell rings three times outside the birds fall silent all sitting zazen clocks come to a stop time no longer has meaning in meditation apple blossoms fall covering the ground in pink promising summer

    Lou Faber

  • IN DREAMS

    Mingling with the wind, my dreams are carried off into the night before I have fully finished viewing them. The heavy heat of summer has seeps through the windows, a blanket I cannot throw off almost smothering, until it, too, is soon washed away by the rivulets of sweat soaking into the sheets. I reach…

    Lou Faber