I am starting to appreciate poetry more. As a creative medium, it's becoming easier as I get older to write spontaneous short poetry that expresses a moment of emotion or feeling or experience, or even just capturing the moment I notice the season has changed. The Chance Encounter and my poetry are one in the same in this regard, an effort to bottle lightning in an instant.
it's rare for me to share them except to quietly add them here, where they will end up being shown to a few friends, perhaps. I am happy to share poetry and poets whose work I enjoy, but it's rarely anything I'm shockingly proud of.
Please no steppy!!
2024
I surely wrote some poems on Mastadan that I need to copy here...
taking tea with the condemned at "tree prison"
: a misty warm autumn day and Yunnan's finest buds : brewed together on a fresh cut tea table : a fir tree stumped, a forest trail thinned
: horns in the distance still the bird-chatter briefly, : warning of fresh carrion incoming, while truck engines growl in wait
: to carry more old souls off to become : a house or a table or a shed or some other stature : lower than beautiful big old tree : carbon: captured
: a neighbor patch stands perfectly 10 feet apart each : their board-straight lines cast geometric shadows : given just enough space to breathe : but never enough time to thrive
: i linger in the mist with sword fern and native grape : holding up my cup, enjoying it alone
: watching meadow grass take over what was once forest floor : we'd call it a lovely savannah if it weren't all : paint-marked firs lamenting their board-straight compatriots
A beautiful sunset, shortly before the fall equinox
: maple tips matching : golden hour cirrus brush strokes : summer's end, alight
6 poems over 6 days during Zenways Meditation and Mindfulness Teacher Training
We spent a couple of hours each afternoon walking around Big Bear Camp, being mindful, being engaged with the place, the land of the place, channeling Basho and the Zen poets of old.
1
: Searched for true nature : on berry-bearing high trails — : Nothing to report : Trails and constructs old and new : and five-foot-grid-stands for miles
2
: In the fruit orchard, : boughs bend red in to view : Thump! : One, two, three, four fall
3
: Old growth and new growth : Sprout from the humus the same : All from that one root
4
: As hard as you try : to follow your well laid plans : Sometimes the right choice : is to look up at Chestnuts : and share hearty laughs with friends
5
I've never had a strong sense of my own lineage. No heirlooms nor oral histories, no family cemeteries. Today I hiked out, expecting to see a handful of unrelated families brought on the Oregon Trail to avoid Reconstruction out east. Found instead a whole linage on display. Never did I want to be put in a box in a field near other boxes in the field, but I can see the appeal now. But put me right in the dirt with my lineage please. Stick me under a fig like ole Uncle Sid. Face me against a wall like Daruma and tea will sprout at my feet. Let me nourish with my body something beautiful like a dogwood or maple. Just, please, no boxes.
6
(After "Snow on Mt Fuji" came as a joke repeatedly from myself and the others in struggling to finish haiku):
: Five poems of practice : haiku and waka for days : Five syllabal lines : All prepared me to say: : It snowed on Mt. Fuji today.
2023
I did not write much this year.
While flying home over Nevada and eastern California
: looking down five miles : arroyos carve the desert floors : pit mine tailings too
I had composed another while I was in phoenix in the same situation as the spontaneous haiku from last year but I lost them before I got to a pen. Alas.
green wave
: riding with joy while : big machines chomp at the bit : -- green wave on the bike
Winter 2022/2023
Spontaneous haiku composed for no one in particular while walking through Phoenix, AZ late at night:
: sodium lamps' buzz : can do little to mask the : nearby highway's groan
: the end of the line, : inefficient bus transit : hazard lights blinking
: a mile here, mile there. : easy to say in a place : built around big cars
: drainage overflowing, : but only on the sidewalk -- : all this for fake sod??
Fall 2022
first Tea flower
: autumn equinox: : the first tea flower blooms : and rain clears the air
fall's first rain
: fall's first rain falling : smells of humus, petrichor. : mourn the sun later.
Summer 2022
long summer days Waka Poetry
: alas, these long summer days... : sound of crickets, cicada : only remind me : of youth, yearning, and wonder : and long summer days
admiring motion Haiku Poetry
: riding side by side : but then sometimes falling back : to admire motion
Spring 2022
: dreaming of brewing : tea under the coming moon : -- well then, shall we?
2021
Journal 2021W37] : leaves gold, like the tea : brewed by myself for years now. : what is one more fall
making tea at west point light house
a Waka on the Lunar New Year Journal 2021W06]
: on this new year day, : the coldest we've been in years, : a sheet of white snow : could not silence the bird song : or the trill of my kettle
2020
February Rain: 2020 February 28]
: i can feel the rain. : long across open water : you've traveled to me. : you meet the sun and take her. : she will return to me soon
March in the Woods: Journal 2020W12]
: oh dear fishing rod: : i used you only one time. : not a bite; too bad