A Few Words for Boris

Our feet are firmly planted

In the underworld

Our heads drift aloft

In the clouds

We never know exactly

What it is we are looking at

Until for so long it's been gone

As the dream waking cycle

Keeps spinning round and round

What Do You Think?

Thinking about death on the way home, I almost got sideswiped by an impatient landscaper in his van, as I composed this short poem.

But then again

Death might resemble

Being put on hold

By customer service

For what seems 

Like an eternity

And no less frustrating

Denied the power of

Direct action and complaint

Only through the agency of others

To retain a grasp on

The course of events 

The Panther - in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris

The world probably has little need for another translation of this great Rilke poem but tonight I decided to take it out for a turn around the dance floor.  No better way to understand a poem than to translate it ....

Constantly circling

Passing bars back and forth

His vision grows bleary

Held by each of the ten

Thousand bars passing

While beyond them

Nothing more

Retracing his steps

Over and over again

With deliberate stride

Pads landing softly

Confined to this pattern

As in a ritual dance
Circling the center

 Never once advancing

His great will dazed

Albeit some times

The film quietly lifts

From his eyes and then

Like an image transfixed

His body tenses in silence

As he listens to the beating 

Of his being's very heart

In case you enjoyed this, here's another translation of a poem from Rilke's menagerie -- this one about a swan.

Sea Conditions are Calm

Sea conditions are calm
Only moderate chop
To walk on the ferry
Unencumbered
By a car or a plan
Except to disembark
At a distant port
Without a care

The engine stirs
From deep within
Throttling in reverse
My entire body trembles
With a hum that originates
From far underneath the deck

Sunday Morning Reply to Mary Oliver

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

     -- Mary Oliver


Each day awaking reincarnate
Each day a lifetime unto itself
Wild and precious but far from singular
Across many oceans of lifetimes
We add to the carapace of karma
We carry along on our backs

Each Tree That Speaks to Me (for Marissa)

Each tree speaks to me

More or less

Grandiloquently

Nothing but a cloven root

That has chosen to

Grasp at the soil and

Address itself skyward

Here and now

So we too have planted ourselves

With each new painting or poem

More or less snugly recorded

In words paper string and stone

The tropes of our inner light

Searching for an outward form

Our bark itself starts quivering

At first hint of approaching dawn

The Fine Art of Translating Silence

As Zhuang Zhou said one day to Guan Yin
The better part of any translation
Lies in words left unsaid
The fortune still inside the cookie
Half-baked inside my head
And so it is with the fine art
Of translating silence

Implicit trumps explicit
Everyday of the week
Except Sunday
Or whatever day
It happens to be when
You first wake up and find
Your inner and outer beauty
Already in perfect conformity

Our Daily Chleb

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Chleb – the polish word for bread

Sounds equally inviting to my ear

As our native English sound

One of the first five or ten words
I ever learned to say
A source of pleasure

Best savored in the flesh

Bringing forth a glottal hum 

From deep in your throat
So deep in your chest too
Especially sinking your teeth
Into a fresh dark loaf

So sign and signified derive 

Their mutual strength

From the same root source --

The chakra of life itself
That sprouts from the ground
And you carry home underarm
But to speak of it still is
The least of its charm