When The Song Left The Sea

AMERICAN MINIATURES: The Poetry of Direct Perception; snapshots of awareness and the mystery of memory; poetry as memoir; Heidegger claimed that the base of all language was poetry: tree, river, stone.


1.

cat-leap
firefly
extinguished


2.

stepping outside
into the frosty air:
first star, same old wish


3.

all my life
looking out of windows:
phases of the moon


4.

Indian summer . . .
the sleeping dog growls deeply
in a cloud of gnats


5.

returning home . . .
fooled again into waving
at the scare-crow


6.

how serenely
he greets the blowing snow ---
faded blue Buddha


7.

where she once moved
in the vacant room
a lingering grace


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THE ARTIST


Her palette almost empty,
she seeks what she has sought all along:
the formless, the form





APHORISMS

Death: a crash-course
in non-attachment


composing his 'death' poem . . .
he runs out of breath


the mind wants to know,
but the syllables of the heart pour out silently


"I" am the barrier life seeks to overcome
like a river empties into the sea