Gratitude to Old Teachers


When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake,https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2014-02-17_14-52-14.png
We place our feet where they have never been....

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2014-02-16_13-51-30.pngAs I crossed the bridge, a hairy hand came out.
"Stop, pay troll."
I gave him 5 euros. He put it not in his purse but in a...

A Rainy Morning


A young woman in a wheelchair,
wearing a black nylon poncho spattered with rain,
is pushing herself through the morning.
You have seen how pianists
sometimes bend forward to...

The Word


We ride up softly to the hiddenhttps://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2014-02-09_14-46-54.png
oval in the woods, a plateau rimmed
with wavy stands of gray birch and white...

What is the Deep Listening

What is the deep listening?https://www.vaknlp.com/improve-listening-skills.gif
Sama is a greeting from the secret ones inside the heart - a letter
The branches of...

On Hearing a Poem Recited, Not Read*

The poem flew at me
Little darts, pricking my skin
piercing my belly, my arms, my eyes
Flew at me on swift, black wings
trailing a smoky blur past my ears...

I Went into the Maverick Bar


I went into the Maverick Bar https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2014-01-23_10-06-40.png
Gary Synder
In Farmington, New Mexico.
And drank double...

Hokusai Says


Hokusai says Look carefully.https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2014-01-18_14-42-59.png
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says...

Candle Hat


In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,
Rembrant looks...

New Year’s Prayer 2014

As I have encountered the Dharma in this life,https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2014-01-12_13-28-32.png
And from time to time been interested in practising...

Longing And Belonging


There is something which longs for me,
Longs to belong to me.
A life which enters with each breath,
Yearning to absorb the splendor
Into my soul.

A Blessing For The New Year


Beannachthttps://www.unlearning101.com/.a/6a00e55291856388330134867bf3bc970c-pi
("Blessing")
On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you...

Mochi Tzuke


The rice has been washed twice and soaking for two days.
Despite the "no burn" alert
the almond wood fires - lit before dawn -
boil water beneath the steamers:
three stacks of...

A Prayer from My Red Heart


O great grandfather, hear us.https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2013-12-16_12-24-40.png
O great Sky Father, listen to our plea.
We come to You as...

My life is not this steeply sloping hour,
In which you see me hurrying.
Much stands behind me; I stand before it like a tree;
I am only one of my many mouths,
And at that, the one that will be...

Those Winter Sundays


Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires...

In memory of Nelson Mandela:

Invictus


Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In Praise of the Earth

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1x5sYpQDddw/S9ygzsOlC3I/AAAAAAAAAGM/gRGQ4YUoipY/s320/earth.jpgLet us bless
The imagination of the Earth,
That knew early the patience
To...

For All


Ah to be alivehttps://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2013-11-27_14-45-09.png
on a mid-September morn
fording a stream
barefoot, pants rolled up,
holding boots, pack on,...

American Tune


Many's the time I've been mistaken and many times
confused.

Yes, and often felt forsaken and certainly misused.

But I'm all right, I'm all...

America: A Prophecy (excerpt)
The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations;
The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up;
The bones of death, the cov'ring...

Epiphany


Just as I gave up waitinghttps://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2013-11-18_12-02-50.png
and turned back to tend the fire,
the full moon rose over the Mogollon Rim,
sending...

Sleeping in the Forest


I thought the earth remembered me, shehttps://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2013-11-17_15-44-31.png
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her...

Water


I think of the times we traced the leaks
in our boat to unknown entrance places.
It was the mystery and the game
that water played with us.
I would comb the shelves
with a small...

In September, I attended a presentation by people from Mendocino County who are intending to set up a county bank. This would be a huge advantage to Sonoma County as well. It involves, first,...

The Geometry of Water

Ask water
for its diameter dimension circumference,
it will laugh,
scoff even,

“You dividers and geometers,”
it might say,
“contain me all you want,

Singing Images of Fire


A hand moves, and the fire's whirling takes different
shapes.
. . . all things change when we do.
The first word, Ah, blossomed into all others.
Each...

In Praise of Earth


We kept on dancing last summer though the dancing had been called subversive.
We weren't alone at the end of this particular world and knew
it wouldn't be the last world,...

The Real Work


What I would say in one sentence is that, for Americans, the real work is becoming native to North America. The real work is becoming native in your heart, coming to understand we...

A Brief For The Defense


Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our...

Traveling Through Cultures of Eyes


I passed through a city where I was seen.
A city of living in the eyes,
a city of presence.
where to look carefully is a developed art,
a slow,...

Ghost Road Song


for my father, 11/19/1927 – 6/27/2009


I need a song.
I need a song like a river, cool and dark and wet,
like a battered old oak; gnarled bark,
bitter acorns,

This morning I fell in love with a poem.

Aimless Love

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining table.

In the shadows of an...

This Earth, My Brother


The dawn crack of sounds known
rending our air
shattering our temples toppling
raising earthwards our cathedrals of hope,
in demand of lives offered on those altars...

For Tom Sharp


Once there was a time when it was necessary
to remove ourselves from nature. Once.
To distinguish, to see within
these selves is the objective. It's second nature


now. ...

Fire On The Hills


The deer were bounding like blown leaves
Under the smoke in front of the roaring wave of the brushfire;
I thought of the smaller lives that were caught.
Beauty is not always...

The Second Coming


Turning and turning on the widening gyre,
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The...

Blackberry-Picking


Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You...

Justice


Clutching a white cloth in her hand
She could no longer carry the weight
Of much more than one lifetime
In her diminutive black body
Struggling to stay erect upon
The hard wooden...

Envoi
Lazarus woke to the miracle of no longer fearing failure.
He lifted his two sides from the ground as he tried
To speak, one part gathering darkness, one part humming.
When he walked out, he...

Let Someone Catch You


It’s in the
falling
that we rise
in that fall-on-your-face
SPLAT
that we forget
who we think we should be

Foolish to lament




Foolish to lament the end of summer,
enough of that confused sound of grief
that only pleases the darkness. Listen,
a season's passing is not your oracle or
creation,...

What We Carry


When I was an intern, we carried everything.
We carried manuals and little personal notebooks, frayed and torn,
crammed with tiny bits of wisdom passed on by a senior or...

The Birthing

Call out the names in the procession of the loved.
Call from the blood the ancestors here to bear witness
to the day he stopped the car,
we on our way to a great banquet in his...

Old Man Leaves Party


It was clear when I left the party
That though I was over eighty I still had
A beautiful body. The moon shone down as it will
On moments of deep introspection. The wind...

Praise Song For The Day

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and...

Everybody Knows


Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows...

Peonies

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open -
pools of...

The Country of Marriage


Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers...