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SATURDAY MORNING, WINTER
The radio is suddenly blaring and the clock of the stove says seven o’clock but the window retorts it is winter when there is no time. You pull up your collar as you prepare to leave. At the store, pick up a baguette, it will go well with a pork tenderloin with a sauce of…
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A WINTER MEDITATION
I have given up on winter, which is to say that I have fled its iron grip, but the memories I have linger painfully in the rods the surgeon carefully screwed onto my spine. It wasn’t the cold, though it was far from pleasant, but the snow that demanded but also defied being shoveled. I…
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LEAVING
The trees seem to know that we are leaving, why else would they shed their leaves so early, the only tears they are allowed to cry. It cannot be a blight, or so we think it, just our departure that has caused this premature pining for a winter we all know will arrive too soon…
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ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM
It’s the little things, she says, that bite you, and while he truly doesn’t want to believe this, for it ought to be the big things that cause the problems, he knows she is right. He recalls that a simple thing like an address everyone knows is 123 3 X Street is true for all…
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FARE WELL OR FAREWELL
The sun has slipped back into its familiar failure mode lighting the sky, seeming to set the trees aflame, but offering precious little warmth. It is just practice for the season we all know is lurking just beyond the horizon, beyond our too short sight. We hope not to be here to greet it, having…
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OBSCURITY
a winter night clouds digest the moon cars drive turning lights out disappearing neon signs stare beckoning vacancy open space super condensed matter she moans I love you to starched sheets shrouds wrap her loins a cat scampers into a bush dragging the sun melting the highway electrons run crashing into nothing quantum leaps First…
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NAME THAT CLOUD
The weather, he announced to no one in particular, ought to be musical or at least incorporate some jazz. Spring is bebop, Trane and Parker, the sudden clash of Blakey the downpours of Dizzy and the hint of what’s to come on the fingers of Monk, and Kenny and Milt. Summer brings the slow easing…
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REFLECTIONS
An elk stands at the edge of a placid mountain lake and sees only the clouds of an approaching winter. A black bear leans over the mirrored surface of the lake and sees only the fish that will soon be his repast. The young man draped in saffron robes looks calmly into the water and…
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UNGAN’S SWEEPS THE GROUND
As you stoop to pick up fallen leaves are you cleaning spring, summer or autumn? What seasons are deep within the winter branch? How does your work and that of the tree truly differ, and what leaves do you shed? A reflection on case 83 of the Shobogenzo (Dogen’s True Dharma Eye)
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DEEP WITHIN
In the dead heart of winter there is only a brief dusting of snow this day and the sun appears in appreciation before sulking off to far warmer climes.
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an old writer and his words 