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My master knows no-
thing. I gaze at him and see
nothing, his mind un-

moving and unmoved.
My self selves many others,
but not him, no way.

He meditates, he
says. Keeping all things open
between us, I blink.

On a cool bright day
a smart lady walks down Broad.
She’s wearing Gucci

shoes, and I think of
you. Gucci shoes, Gucci shoes,
you loved your Gucci

shoes. Rome, Paris, Bath,
black patent Gucci shoes. In
later years you leaned

on me, and I did
too much admire your pretty
feet in Gucci shoes.

I sit in the win-
dow space just watching the sun
rising through the trees.

Birds flicker, being
and nonbeing in my eyes.
It’s not nothing, O-

rigin. It takes my
steady gaze to see the whole
that is and isn’t.

The birds flicker. The
whole flickers open to not
having been at all.

My master sleeps. Walk-
ing on the wind can’t compare
to riding the curve.

I am Cat Wang hang-
ing out in Tom’s window as
still clouds gather and

high summer shimmers.
I sense the origin of
coming and going,

the absolute sweet-
ness of being at all. It’s
irritating when

poor Tom listens to
the radio: more mass shootings,
more rage. He fixes

on what just happened—-
is there no limit to news?
We live in Troubled

Times now. He used to
read Chinese poems to me:
mind knows beyond cloud.

Last line from David Hinton, Classic Chinese Poetry, p 157.

The Gay Science is
my favorite book of his.
It solves the problem

of my life. Two faiths.
Weak Christianity with
its stress on pity

(my childhood faith) and
Epicurianism,
study of my old

age in the pages
of Horace, mocking will-to-
power: these are the

same. So my life flows.
On summer nights like this I
moonwatch and listen

to garage bands chase
Nietzsche’s dream of total sound.
Everything makes sense.

August evening:
the lawn overwatered, bright
oak leaves reaching through

into the thick air
shot with gauzy stars. Desire
has found its voice in

the low drying hedge
or is it from under the
steps. Now listen to

the first cricket of
the season, of his one and
only season: I

have a month to live
and I’ll spend it singing you
into my life. La

petite mort my theme.
This house belongs to a hu-
man poet. His chirp

lacks my jeweled charm.
Now that it’s hot he can’t sleep,
he just lies awake

listening to me
woo you with pulsing, some say
eternal, music.

Drifting in and out
of sleep in my reading chair,
I glimpse bits of you.

Once a yellow check
appeared with your signature.
You’d use a thick black

Sharpie (you were half
blind by then). You loved to help
with the rent when you

could. You loved signing
the name you chose as a child.
It blurred in my tears.