Sliver of what

what life do you live before language
before the vivid lunatic dances
trips the tongue lust relic last
fabricating death in wistful neon campfire stories
desperate wit raging into that electric night
denying real death
honest unsighing self-true death
the one thriving death of all

don't you know there is nothing to die for
but death itself

what do you dream before you wake the earth
before Aristotle presumes to speak for us rocks and woods
all of us the craggy brained sensitive mercy
us smooth beatific stones sitting hard hermits in
babbling brooks where we are
here here giving moment to moment to what we are
edgeless natives of rain
modest conspicuous nature here
reading moon books and smiling at what we don't know
smashing the haunted damn pottery of Greek ghosts
Greek slivers always darting away from wild sane attention
our pure attention
one thriving attention for all
the life lived
just lived
and lived and lived
and lived

what do you do with that
when you can't say anything
like a lotus grinning in the muck
finding freedom here
wherever here
hearing where nature generously allows flowers in mud
what do you say
can we say nothing
and mean it

Into the forest slowly

Breathing mouthfuls of reality
I have seen my first
Sincere thought
It is patience offered to desire
The dry crumbling of thorns that
Would snag a calm
Wandering heart
The very end of suffering
As star birds make their
Death flight to the moon
And what is resigned
Begins in earnest
Would you my patient woods
Have me now?

mooooving water

we praise moving water while building dams
trying to hold it all in our greedy minds
every step
another Buddha to kill
Buddhas as far as my eyes can see
no further than
the span of a breath

Dark rock

Lightning flashes
Limestone hills bright
Exploding into
Being
Leaves no trace
A dark rock
Unmoved

Laughing life

I prepared myself for
A life of service
So I began to laugh
Leaving no
Trace in
Heaven

Love is here

Poor moon
Poor victim of poets
Let's come off it
Who wants a woman
With a cloud between
Her thighs?
Love walks the earth
The moon up high
Is here

Human confusion

The world is vast
Incredibly vast
But there is nothing strange
In being human
Eyes wide open
It's a gentle confusion