Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘stillness’

Still Rambling

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 7, 2013| 3 Comments »

Silence
I am tired
of evading
you.
Was that
your plan
all along,
to outwait me,
knowing
that sooner
or later
after all that
one-sided
conversation
and rumpus
I’d need a drink
of water
and take
by sweet accident
a sip

of you.

Read Full Post »

Chance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 27, 2012| 2 Comments »

First I thought
it a piece of cliff
tumbled
onto the highway,
but then became
visible four short legs,
then the horns,
the dark wool. But
it did not move,
not one inch,
as I passed it
going west,
passed it wishing
I were not so quick
in my travels,
wishing I could
stand on the road
and forget it was
a road.

Read Full Post »

And That’s All

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 1, 2012| 2 Comments »

Five pink lilies,
petals splayed,
more perfume
in the room
than one nose
can take in.
Sometimes
the mind
reaches for more—
one more hour,
one more kiss,
one more cookie,
one more glimpse,
one more oh,
it goes on, but
tonight
the scent
of five open lilies,
the scent
of five
pink lilies.

Read Full Post »

Stillness, I Say I Want You

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 17, 2012| 3 Comments »

Stillness, I say I want you.
Pond with no wrinkle. Hanging

leaf with no breeze. Mind with
no wheel of thought.

I say please teach me and then
rail against you. Squirm and reach

and whirl. In the quiet field,
I make of myself a wind.

In the silent blue room, I sing.
I climb the balcony with a tambourine

instead of sitting in the garden below.
Stillness, how I rub against you.

The heat builds the longer I sit.
I am sand paper against you. I am

bell. I am red. I am mint. Stillness,
the teachers say you are here

beneath the veils of do and must.
I listen and think I know what they mean.

I turn you into a thought. Stillness,
you leak through this carrying on.

Stillness, I wrestle myself till I sweat.
I shout your name, Stillness, as if

you were deaf. Stillness,
where are you? And where are you not?

The dawn and the night move with you.
I keep bumping against, what?

Oh Stillness, I’m laughing. There you
were in the question, but I went on

with my wondering, my want.

Read Full Post »

Long Time Coming

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on September 17, 2012| 5 Comments »

Just this morning
the leaves were green

in this stand of aspen
that now flash gold—

it happens that fast,
though of course

there is nothing
quick about it.

It took a whole season
to grow the leaf

and nurture it into
brilliance. And

it took decades
to grow the tree that grew

the leaf. And what
of evolution? Oh patience.

Perhaps this is why
on the woman who’s finally learning

how to sit still beside the leaves
there’s a bit of salt water

sliding down her skin.

Read Full Post »

Hide and Seek

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 14, 2012| 5 Comments »

The lilies were orange. They boy in blue
sat in the middle of them, as if by being
still enough he might disappear and become

orange lily. The sky wore its grayest dress
for midday, and all around us people
were moving, quickly, from here to there.

One man chided him for sitting in the flowers.
Most ignored the boy and looked instead
at me as if to say, Aren’t you going to get

the boy out of the lilies? I didn’t. I wandered
around and made embellished pretense
of looking for the boy. We both knew I knew

where he was. Yoo hoo. Yoo hoo, I said
to the scarlet gilia, the lupine pods
twisted and brown, the golden currents.

Yoo hoo. And the boy sat still as the center
of the watch dial. Who could say
how long he might have been a lily

if I had not suddenly turned
into one of them, the rushing ones, reminding
him that it was time to go, now, I mean now,

the lilies, I forgot to smell them as I plucked
the boy out of the garden and pulled him
onto the path.

Read Full Post »

the mastery of the thing tanka

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 19, 2012| 6 Comments »

blue heron
so still in the sky
my heart beats
faster than
its wings

Read Full Post »

four haiku and a tanka

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on January 26, 2012| 1 Comment »

inside that sigh
migrate a thousand thousand
butterflies

*

what’s quiet
is still quiet behind
the barking dog

*

I fall asleep
aware of part of me watching
the one who sleeps

*

these arms
not reaching
but waving

*

poor woman
stopping long enough to smell
the juniper berries
only because
she has to pee

Read Full Post »

Reluctant Student Tanka

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 26, 2011| 1 Comment »

Be still.
—Lama Surya Das

It would be easier
to walk ten hundred miles
through swamps
than to do what you ask of me:
nothing.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts