passage

so drifting
is part of the stillness
sea's vast stillness
heaving heart of eternity

is this death now
tenderly dissolving me
in green reaches of water

is this still me
some human rest
murmuring with shells
in echo of distant tides
breaking on the beach

mandrem, winter 2006

ashen

night is mute
withholding secrets
if secrets you call them

revelations no one needs
to stand upright in the cold
and sustain the hunger of trees

silouhette of tales
blooming

sequence of events

sitting among highland grass
overlooking a dormant valley
at blue mountains’ waning light
eastern crags blurred in mist

pointing to this terrain
shaded in old plum-trees
heard tokuda say one day
fine resting place for monks

on one of the steles
your name
and this epitaph

kyuzan tetsu-un

journeyed far
when a cloud
now only
mountain peace

atlantic

ocean crossing
back to montreal
same journey as before
then it was some garden in england
now water everywhere
how much has changed
how much hasn’t

time’s remains
who’s remains
who remains

where it matters
little matter for change
things go through turnings
yet the same breeze
arrests you at the threshold

you are yourself
endings and beginnings
of paths converging
paths effacing
journeys to come

june 20, 1984

elixir

a word to you blazing full moon
you have made of this night
a thick potion where you brew
sunlight of azure skies
dregs of pitless howls

a river of pain
is what you pour into me
i feel it broaden as it runs
serene into the sea

room on the cliff

hours pass by
day begins to drift
twilight colors enshroud the sea

alone with roar of silvery waves
in a cliff-hanging room
and rocks' open-ended reply

it’s a single voice
where merge the caller
and the called

in deep slumber
find you lying next to me
from distant shores returned
face awash with moonlit waters

from where surfs whistle you return
in the garden of swaying palms
you become queen of the breeze

grace

glance behind the shoulder
over spent springs
winters to come

you are but a breath
enacted for a dream
shudder
running down a shade

yes
it's me
this kneeling animal
with frosty eyes
starring outside
into vacant spaces
no its inside
no its nowhere

yes its nowhere
yes its inside

nothing divisible
in this void

not even wind
not even time
even pain
repletion of pain

friends on the road

here is a song
for the songs i lost
written on the strand
with lucency of waves
and fingers of storm

vanished
you vanished well before me
witnesses to this crossing
once i named you
now we go without witness
nameless with no crossing
straight into the sand
straight into the sea

here in this dark
a votive in my hand
i bless you with oblivion
compañeros
bless me too with oblivion
compañeros

does a dog have buddha nature

barking complete
barking so full
you can no longer call it
dogs’ work
god's work

it comes from everywhere
everything is barking
houses
trees
streets

seamless tapestry
pervading night’s remote confines

it becomes space
night is barking
stars are barking
world is barking

clamor
no one can stop
ruthlessly alive
dislodging you from your hiding

pains exposed
shames exposed
lumps in the throat
thawing in the dark
barking in the dark


mandrem, 2 january 2012

baltica

water is perhaps turning
with it turning the river
clouds erring above the river
mirrors burning into smoke
galaxies reaching outward in haste

on this bridge footfalls fade
made of yesterday’s sand
tomorrow’s tears
unsettled dust of migrating souls
stars come here to cross path
with the living
with the dead

at doorway of shadows
in breezy night we meet
unlistened
your hands try to awaken my face

we herd in your paining stones
one by one
heartbeat after heartbeat

mandrem, 29 december 2011

what will you call it

here again after so long
grazing grass as i promised i would

this is no longer the neighbor’s pasture
all the neighbors have gone
one day a heavy gale came and
all of us became water buffalos
now feeding off someone’s prairie
vast
where grass is verdant and profuse

as with bitterness
sweetness of its taste
our laments blend
with the river’s roll
running down the vale to no end


siem reap, 22 august 2011

bardo chill

only when the last lights go dim
do you see it is a dream
not before
before you are the dream
stream of raging images
learning to speak to mirrors
that have no use for your secrets

the shrub of dreams
does not draw water from our hours
its futurity is the wind’s voicing
herding trees through awakening

waiting for you has made me old
your call at the brink of the world
makes the heart shudder

in the temple yard
they open the fountain of blessings

mandrem, 21 november 2011

the other side

what is coming back to you
from the other side

nothing

the mirror you grew up in
doesn’t reflect anymore

gone blind our mirror
lost to the dark
lost to late-night stars
our mirror

in its place a window
open to lush trees for now
tomorrow we do not know

we salute and wish you well
tomorrow we don’t know
you and all your seeds
your raucous birds
dipping at daybreak
into fury green

mandrem, 18 november 2011

end of land

in a distant land
where souls are scant
left this morning in the cold
with a wind that no longer speaks
or speaks but no one hears
with trees no one hears
or hears but no longer sees
or green forever flows
far where the eye is drifting
to water's endless embrace

new brunswick,june 2011

in the open

if we see ourselves anything other
than a flickering image in a mirror
wavering between the trivial and the tragic
then death could not be a pond where we disappear

there is perhaps a deeper humiliation
in being human
lacking the kind of literacy
that would enable us to tell the trees
how unloved we sometimes feel our hands

something consoles us in the breeze
as it animates our lives’ sketchbook
swiftly averting resistances
exfoliating our darker core
to redeem us from failings
that have much to do with distance

we are entrusted to the open
where all things
whatever they may be
wherever they may stand
are at all time beginning

siem reap, september 1, 2011

cévennes

you slip outside your voice
speechlessly err at summer’s end
the dusky garden breathes in
wind’s many gates
wind’s many gold

cicadas hush up
slowly i approach their sleep

blessed by a night of loss
we become a moonlit vessel of song
consigned with stars’ orison
adrift on distant seas

saint-hippolyte du fort, july 2009

the road again

regrets
unmet faces
unheard voices
hands not seized
smiles not returned

leave a place for that too

when the wanting fades in the being
and everything falls away
you still have
things are
it is

you still have sunrise above mekong
blazing the watercourse
as it breaks into branches

you still have the breeze
brushing silvery tree-tops
lining the river front

you are still in the reach of fire
and the waking voices

phnom penh, 1 november 2011

it's a mystery

a mystery
that glow passed onto you
in unvarnished darkness

heart rejoices
in forgetfulness that comes
watching mirrors go down
one by one over the precipice
flights all fused and effaced
in sudden stillness

raucous cawing welling up
from lush mangrove
and subdued cries of the dead
converge course in wind’s flood
blossom into pristine air

lips again stung
with morning’s sparks

nilemba

night not offering much sleep
me lying restless in the cot
you sandlewood buddha
sitting stifly on the pane

outside fireflies
mingle their glow
with stars clustering
above heavy boughs

shadows deepen
in this tiny cell
where death
silently remolds me

nilemba, sri lanka, 29 january 2008

waking

its early morning as i
enter to sit in a circle
birds spread before me
with subdued songs

that’s my gateway into
the rain's mighty voice
as it pounds heavily
on tinned roofs and leafage
as it pounds
on the arc of sleep whence i emerge
soon there returning
without this bundle
or so i hope
after long ferrying this pain

often the need to unload
adds somehow to the burden

this listening redeems
for what you hear in the rain
is a most ancient song
its the voice of the world
humming its own beginning

source of endless
vibrant refrains
where alongside birds
we too glean for provision

siem reap, 26 august 2011