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.
I see you walking
your dog. Your dog walks you, too.
When I say walk, I
mean wander under
the sky as I versify.
It’s just what happens.
My dog (my soul) counts
the steps we take, notes changes
in the light, sings with
the gulls out at sea,
turns us toward home. My dog
demands to be walked.
As it gets colder
my walks get shorter, but feel
longer, more intense.
Winter condenses
time into crystals, each one
its own metaphor
for timelessness. Fall
combines spring and summer mo-
ments, never winter.
I watch the TV
at the pub. The sound is off.
We all love football.
The light outside is
ripe. These fall days are smokey
with a long finish.
There are values and
values. I’ll go see an old
flame who lives alone.
”The importance of prayer is to demonstrate one’s attentiveness to the status of its own finitude.” Takeshi Morisato, Faith and Reason in Continental and Japanese Philosophy, Bloomsbury, p. 172.
I may not be re-
ligious but there are times
prayer stops me cold.
Like the resonance
of Basho’s elsewhere cuckoo.
In the overcast,
the green fire of a mallard
from the dark water.
”In order to use language as a musical medium we must also approach it as a physical medium, as sound.” Zwicky, The Experience of Meaning, 150.
Within earshot of
the pub I turn toward the
cove, the raucous sea-
gulls, glittering waves.
I close in on the silence
of fellow creatures.
A chorus of shrieks
in the impersonal glare
of winter sunlight.
Later I’ll stop by
and say hello to the girls
who sing in their prep.
”Lyric thought achieves integrated speech only to the extent that words are bent to the shape of wordlessness.” Jan Zwicky, LYRIC PHILOSOPHY#137
Pre- Thanksgiving Day
walk to the cove—air, water
bursting with white gulls.
O The Great Swamp mass-
acre: kids, women, the old,
slayed by Puritans.
O air and water,
O Narragansett people,
the white gulls screaming.
”The point here also has to do with thresholds between immanence and transcendence and whether an entirely “immanent frame” can be sustained.” Desmond, GODSENDS, 140
The shiny object
on the boat ramp where the geese
sat was a small fish.
It shone in the dull
winter sunshine. I said ”hi”
to the geese and left.
Sometimes all you get
from a walk to the cove in
the cold is the cold.
The cacophany
of distant gulls, the slow bells
of Trinity on
the hill, horizon
of my way home. They blend in-
differently. Once
my pace evens, I
too am blended, gulls and bells,
the horizon home.
”In a way, there is no soul. There is no body. There is only the passage between them, and the soul is the blushing body.” Desmond, Godsends (2021), 142.
A late start on a
Sunday after an extra
hour in my warm bed.
When I reached the bay
I sat on the bench under
the old pine and looked
and looked. I got cold
and looked some more, shivered, and
got cold and peaceful.
I found I’m blushing.
No doubt looking is meta-
phor for deep desire.
The pub overflows—
TV football, Thanksgiving
cheer. I leave early.
I’m full of doubts. This
is my country too, awful
as it is. I reach
the other country.
Herringbone lights at full tide.
Two mute swans floating.
The silence broken
by those two calling. I’m dumbstruck,
but it saves the day.
Metaxyturn Diaries 