Sunday afternoon.
I give myself a pedi-
cure and take a walk.
Low tide. Sun on the
mudflats. The horizon bright
with the sound of geese.
As Zhuangzi says, this
is also a that. Nothing
compares with the Il-
lumination of
the Obvious. Haiku and
Zen go together.
Ankle deep at low
tide, the egret holds the fort
surrounded by ducks.
A warm Autumn day.
I give all my attention
to what means nothing.
I am; others are.
Still, I’m distracted by how
soon it’s getting dark.
”Human desire is sourced in transcience, in coming to mindfulness of the equivocities of becoming, something more and other is communicated.” Desmond, G&B 142
I’ve paid no atten-
tion to the fall equinox
‘til now, my life de-
fined by deadlines and
power lunches. Yesterday,
down by the cove, sun-
light framed an egret
and filled it in with soft light
over its own white.
I told someone who
said, ”Well, yeah, the equinox,” not
paying attention.
There are days walking
makes up for not doing what
you know must be done.
Every fallen
leaf, whichever way the wind
blows, wants attention.
But not now, maybe
not this year. You stretch your legs.
Body and breath, heart
and soul, quietly
embrace you for being you
as you start to sweat.
Today I learned white
herons are juvenile blues.
Last night I took out
the trash and could not
get over the moon’s brightness.
Things are like that—some
times relative, some-
times they touch you, move you, you
can’t get over it.
”The life of effort disappears behind the life of grace, of passivity. Quickly there is very little left except grace and passivity.” Simone Kotva, Effort and Grace
As one grows older
and autumn more cruel, the
egret’s flight down from
the trees to the cove
weighs more on the mind. Today
the sweep of it, and
the gritty song — e-
gret, gret, gret— had no regret
in it, only self
self self— say the gift
of being just this bird be-
tween heaven and earth.
”This singular is not a pointillistic particular. To put it in terms of hearing: it voices itself, it utters itself— though there is more than self-voice….The singing of transcendence as other seems to come over the singing of our self-transcending.” G&B 135
A fat fuzzy fly
has joined me in my room at
the top of the house.
By flying around
it seems more important than
it is. After all,
it’s Fall. I forget
it’s here most of the time. We
share oblivion.
We communicate,
turn the void into echo,
silence into buzz.
”Minding does not come to peace here, but its very affirmation of possible being, its joy in contingent being, in creation, points it beyond givenness in the givenness itself.” G&B 133
The remaining swans
half-hidden in taselled grass.
Nickel in the gold.
Sundown in the es-
tuaries. Outlines appear.
We make peace with time.
Nothingness becomes
possible. More than a sweat-
shirt on the walk now.
The floors have cooled in
this old wooden house. My feet
love going barefoot.
I pile fresh blankets
on the bed and look forward
to turning in soon.
With age the good life
is subtly erotic. Si-
lence expresses love.
Love unifies and
compacts, I’m told, and my dreams
show me that and more.
The light on the cove
today was the cove, coming and
going, shedding light.
I stood in the same
spot today but the light had
rinsed it through and through.
I didn’t feel the
same until the green of a
duck flashed in the cove.
From a pier on the
Pacific as a child I’d
throw my catch back. Rad-
ical suffereng —
Ravensbruck and so on and
on—I’d face later.
Buson on Winter—
crows are black, herons white— is
a cold cold poem.
