Walking the streets.
Fragrant in the June sun.
A snail, raising its voice.
I thought, this is a
wardrobe-changing season.
Out with the old memories.
In with a palm-sized view of life.
That gathers in the summer heat.
It feels good to blow away
the chanting shadows.

After finishing the work.
With the Chinese Lady
who reads books in English.
The rain came.

Not the rain of sadness and tears.
In which you just go.
Watching the flowers fall.
With such dead senses.

But the rain in which you
notice the colour of the sky.
The rain which comes
out of emptiness.
And no idea is ever slighted.

This was the rain for us.

​

Mishap and suffering comes.
It is just a matter of order.
Sometimes it feels like
it’s the only living thing.

But there is always an
opening to life.
A thought, a touch, a word
given by the heart.

And to know,
that all things cease to be.
Even the mind and
everything that it creates.

After all the butterflies have gone.
What then?

Dry fields burning over,
still cloaked in dew?

Watching the moon on the water.
Until death overtakes everything?

Or maybe….
just realizing a scene of stupidity.

Who says my poems are poems
anyway.

Yes, perhaps once or twice.
I pay attention to the
human quarrels all around me.
But mostly, I lift my soul
from the rivers
of doom and gloom.
Helped by avoiding
the oceans of illusion.
And a few souls who
allow the sun to enter them.
Seeking nothing in return.

The walls are no
longer useful barriers.
These wrinkled
poems look derelict.
And under a sky raging
with hark back cries.
Only a few hold their beauty.
But a few is enough.
To puncture the silence
of these saggy days.

This morning,
felt like a long winter night.
Drifting over withered fields.

Even the magpies,
full of welling thoughts
began to spit blood.

So, I talked with the
Chinese lady who reads
books in English.

And tended to my words,
like the crops and vegetables
from a different time and place.

Once again, we saw
a current making tiny waves.
As we faced the streets,
with spring blossom.

​

I said to myself.
It is easy to set up what
you dislike against
what you dislike.
Then, I don’t care
where the summer
clouds are drifting to.
So, I decided to return
to the root of things.
Trying not to object
to too much in the world.
Seeing all things as they are.
Gain and loss, right and wrong.
Just one beggar’s bag.
Embracing the way, and
revealing the one as it really is.

A bird came to my class today.
Grasping the light-tones.
The best place for such things.
I am glad that there is
still enough to see
beyond the gray-black days.
Thank you we are saying,
as we waved goodbye.

I know your eyes on such days.
Building yourself a home
and you are afraid even there.
Breaking free is the
most difficult barrier.
But the force,
the flower and the way.
Are still within you.
What are these days if not
measured by your
own flesh and bones?