Corona Senryu VI

Flights canceled, skies clear -
Humans curse the pandemic
While birds rejoice.

Corona Haiku XII

Cold spring morning rain:

Neighbor in thick coat outside.

Markets must go on.

Corona Haiku X

In the pandemic,
A puppy chasing a ball -
Joy undiminished.

Corona Haiku III

Cloudless sunset sky,
Suggesting hope and questions -
Alone on a walk.

Corona Haiku I

Pandemic morning,
Cherry petals in the breeze -
No one there to watch.

Spring Rain

After the rain
Of days and melancholy days,
When the wet sheen on all the world
Reflects a dull spring sky,
Still the swollen green of dripping plants,
With the shiniest indifference,
Demands your full attention.

By the sidewalk, the milky white of dogwood,
In a garden, the tender tone of roses,
And the lilies scatter on a lawn
In speckled yellow splendor:
All seek to draw the eye
From the pensive gray of sky.

To venture out at dawn
And hear the song of sparrows
Hiding in the great, green tops
Of sturdy oak and slender willow,
Branches swaying, dripping rain
Like green low-lying clouds -

Sight and scent and sound that calls -
The bustling of no crowd:
Nature's vigor, soon to die,
Its fleeting moment leaves no doubt,
Our blood is earth, our soul is sky.

Worldwide Web

You can project
Your content here:
Your hope, your fear. 

This space can be
Your preferred candidate,
Your Superman,
Your Jesus. 

What you want me to be, I cannot,
Because I already am. 

In my mind there is a land
Where we can walk together.
Flowers in a field gathered;
Like us, they sway and dance,
Sprung from seeds scattered
By the fickle winds of chance.

 

 

Snowfall

In the morning

The world lay silent white,

A solemn announcement

From the Heavens beyond sight:

 

The fallow world again will rise

From death’s old, cunning slumber.

Though trees are skeletal and somber,

Their roots are fed by winter drifts

That fall from deathless skies.

 

The winter storm that passed in the night,

Sent by the Heavens beyond our sight,

Delivered as well - without joy, without scorn -

Its fell judgment in the morn:

 

All men are weak as infants born,

Though some grow strong and weather storms.

Still some walk hapless, poor, and sick -
For them death’s slumber is sudden and quick.

 

The beggar was found all covered in snow,

Having found in the night no safe place to go.

Outstretched on the church steps he fell,

Frozen hand within reach of the bell

On the door where the snow barely fell.

 

 

 

Destination

The tall volcano will spew its fire.
In rage the storm will roar and break.
The sunlit hills will tremble and shake.

Mankind, another scourge that roams,
Lays waste across the trembling world -
Oceans and forests wither and groan.

Whether the world will end in fire,
Whether the world will end in ice,
Whether mankind's base desires
Will poison the world in passion's guise -

Destruction is the destination.

Those who extol predestination,
In the grip of ancient fears,
Differ little from the explanations,
Offered by the wise of many years
Who trace the arc of nature's dawn
And its ultimate decline
In complex formulas that shine -
The magic spells of a darker time.

Dust

We parted on an old road

near the edge of a small town,

its name forgotten.  

The bus, rattling softly,

raised a cloud of dust

as it faded into memory.  

I remember the pasture

where we escaped the dust

raised by the passing wind. 

In the middle of the pasture

sat the copse of trees,

the remains of an ancient forest.   

We would go into the trees

and pick berries from vines,

wondering if we could eat them.  

His was a strange face

in that strange country,

more open, more knowing.

But his name was lost to the years. 

In those days

our souls were still growing,

our innocence showing

the faith that those moments

would not fade away.

New Year

When the traces of frost are gone,
In the light of a new year's dawn,
From my dusty window pane,
And the morning still is broken
By the ice from branches falling,
As if the earth itself were calling,
The briefest answer spoken,
To my silent, doubtful prayer:
The old year another layer
In the fallow fields of hope -
Whence the strength to note
If the day to mind can bring
The seeds of a brilliant spring:
A new way to see,
A new way to hear,
A new way to pull the plough
Through the fear
And bring a blossom of hope
To the fledgling year. 

There, in the dripping sound
Of the crystal branches
Lay the answer clear:
Like the branches guiding flowers,
The mind holds silent power
To lead its thoughts to joy
Or to pathways of despair.

Therefore, have a care
And seek the three-fold path
For every tender thought:
Is it needed?
Is it kind?
Is it true?
If this counsel then were heeded,
Tomorrow we may find
The world each day is new.

 

 

 

Laptop

The words appeared, noiseless, on the screen:

“We are witnessing transitions

from social-welfare states

to social-control states

around the world. 

“We are witnessing a global crisis,

unprecedented in its magnitude,

ecological degradation

and social deterioration. 

“Unprecedented

in the sheer scale

of violence.” 

The words waited, quietly,

while I drained a glass of pinot grigio. 

The hydrangea bushes

nodded softly in a late summer air,

a bee hovering without sound across petals. 

A long row

of men and women

walked past the sidewalk café

in sharp suits, carrying laptop cases. 

Unprecedented

in the sheer scale

of silence.

 

 

Commencement

Embarking now upon your lives,

As if setting sail on ships

To cross the known and unknown seas,

Recall that with each passing day

You move beneath the endless skies. 

Up above the world so high,

Beyond your earthbound, narrow sight,

Fly colossal, fiery stars

That burst with unimagined might. 

In the infinite sea of space,

Light years and ages away,

Conflagration scars the face,

Of worlds so monstrous in size

That ours is like a grain of sand. 

These worlds the stars do thrash and break

Like hapless, brittle, fragile eggs.

Then they, too, tremble, roar, and shake -

Their final cries the eons take. 

What care the stars for your accomplishments?

What care the stars for your sad failing?

They are blind to your emoluments

As they are deaf to your sick wailing. 

Thus, if you cannot even once

Impress the closest living star,

Seek no man living near or far

To flatter with your learning. 

For if you took one instant to inspect

The make and rudder of your ships

You'll find those ships, like all the world,

Are hapless, fragile, brittle eggs. 

Therefore, have a care for how you tread.

Live your days in awe of nature,

Though free of dread.

Brilliant, young, you are still creatures -

Alive like stars and one day dead.

 

 

Windbreaks

Holiday weekend.

Everyone driving to the sea.

Long rows of cars.

Fashionable colors: red, white, blue.

Through small towns

where letters were sent, received.

Returned to sender.

Everyone driving out to sea.

Wheels carrying everything east.

Luggage full of fears.

Buckets of envy.

Sacks of indifference.

Everyone to the driving sea. 

Where the world meets the sand lie

the windbreaks.

Stretches of taut fabric.

In long rows red, white, blue.

Protecting everyone from the east.

And the driving wind.

The cleansing wind.

Everyone faces the sea.

For a moment or two.

Everyone driven from their cars.

And their fretful umbrellas.

And their fussing hats.

For a moment they almost hear

what the wind came to tell them. 

Then the windbreaks flap.

A sound like a slap.

Taut faces turn away.

Someone calls out.

Laughter from a bottle.

Chatter spreads.

Glasses are passed.

The wind blows past,

over the windbreaks,

into the sky.

 

 

Hunger

When we were young upon the earth,
We did not understand the stars –
So many eyes of the gods upon us.

We did not understand the thunder and rain –

So many gods howling their disdain.

But we understood hunger.

And pain.

We were bound together

To seek our sustenance.
So over hills and plains we ranged.

In the time since,

Not much has changed.
Spears gave way to guns.
Stones gave way to mortgages.
Shopping replaced the hunt,
With prey replaced by wages.

Locked together in a barrel bobbing out to sea,

We don’t know if there is food for you or me.
We stare at the foul and fruit upon the table
And ask, “From what ranch, garden, or stable?”

Fish as alien as the stars,

Beef mysterious as the rain,
Sweets that startle as the clap of thunder –
Our ignorance remains.

Proper Place

All things have their proper place.
Places are claimed by the things in time.

Time lays its sleepy charms on all people.

People secure the things by their claims.

Claims on things are dreams by nature.

Nature secures a place for all things.

All things have their proper place.

Winter’s End

The last week of winter -
Weak winds wafting from the north
Bring the morning chill and the flowers forth.

Whence this strength
To slip from the grasp
Of the season of death?

The flowers scarcely wait
Their appointed hour.
A week early, beneath the moon,
After a night shower spring the blooms.

Still, wrapped in hat and coat I note
How on tender shoots death seems to gloat.
Rain flecked petals in the morning wind
Tell that flowers, too, come to an end.

Though spring comes early and winter fades,
All things, from their beginning,
Show their end of days.

Northern Valentine

The world is frozen
On a northern Valentine’s Day.
The clouds have broken:
Moonlight on lovers gone astray.
They carry tokens,
Yet passion’s warmth has blown away.

The world can lend no aid.
Small creatures dream
In the burrows they have made;
Tree branches gleam
In the wind and give no shade;
And the sun’s pale beams
Offer warmth that quickly fades.

In the cold noontime at the park,
The young man awaits his lover,
Guarding dreams against the dark,
With frozen chocolates and flowers.

He will wait another hour.
Such is its power -
That love will almost never die
Underneath a winter sky.

Window Seat

The clouds, little and round,
Mostly white with tints of rose,
Like seagulls without sound,
Moving in regular rows,
Go gliding past the window.

Their peace a kind of joy,
Like the grinning dolphin leaping
In the orb of sea and sky,
Is the peace all men are seeking,
Beyond grasp of you and I.

I sense the troubling doubts,
From this side of the pane,
That the serenity of clouds
We men could ever gain.

Far below my window seat,
In lands the clouds do darken,
Drums of war the tribes still beat,
To which most men still harken.

Yet behind my window seat
A child's weak wail I hear,
A clamor for his mother's teat,
A sound she must hold dear.

Clouds their quiet realms will keep
As the suckling babe reminds me.
Men know only peace in sleep;
Their cries the call of destiny.

The Fly

Moral absolutism
Is dashed on the rocks
Of cultural relativism
By winds of ethnocentrism.

In the air-conditioned
Clinical room,
The scientist positioned,
A housefly
Under a lens that envisioned,
Its eyes like diamond blooms.

How like a god
He sets to make incisions,
To go behind the eyes,
Into the mystery beyond the visions
Of the tribal prophets
Beneath their desert starry skies.

But the fly has far more eyes,
And will see in more directions,
Than any man who walks the earth,
Its thousand-eyed reflections
Pierced in tribal songs
Of the world before man’s birth.