The Blues - a poem first written as a Facebook post on a late February afternoon

The blue sky too
Soon may be credited
As one of humanity's
Greatest handiworks it seems
First as an observable fact
Only lately becoming an
Internet meme

Once upon a time
The Business Insider reports
We humans could barely
Speak of light at the blue end
Of the spectrum
Like water and sky
It appeared mostly
Part of the muddle
Never standing out
As a pigment in itself
That is until civilization
Had advanced far enough
To perfect the art
Of indigo capture

Whereas especially around
This time of year
Blue becomes its own ubiquity
It's there lingering amidst
The snowfield of shadows
Stretching across the front yard
Overpowering even earthy
Browns and greens in our
Entire way of seeing things
Capturing both the sea
And the sky before
Our admiring gaze
As we all become so
Many little Picasso's
Going through our
Very own blue phase

So much so that now we
Can't imagine the world's hue
Being otherwise as the blues
Have overtaken all other shades
Serving as best expression
Of our true life experience
As well capturing our vision
Of eternity too


*  *  *  *  *  *

This poem was written in response to a news item I came across this afternoon on Business Insider by Kevin Loria.  It was one of the more interesting articles I've read in quite a long time - about how human perception of the color blue seems to be in large part culturally derived and not just biologically determined.  The article is well worth reading if you haven't done so already; it's also quite timely as it arrives on the heels of the latest Internet meme about the blue and black dress.  Click here to read more.

Poem Composed This Morning While Stuck in the Elevator - Take 2

Between the need

To be loved and
The need to love
What is a man?

The doors close behind him
Neither descending
Or ascending but
Suspended there by
Thick cables of doubt
He stands in the middle
Wavering and immobile

Poem Composed This Morning While Stuck in the Elevator

Between the need
To be loved and
The need to love
What is a man?

He stands in the middle
Wavering and immobile

The doors close behind
Neither descending
Or ascending but
Suspended there by
Thick cables of doubt

Poem written about suchness while waiting for the bus

Between the suchness
And thrustness of
Any given minute
It matters not in the least
Whether a blow
Be administered by
Manjusri's sword
Or a falling valise

A passenger in transit
Waiting in the cold after
The day's long slushy rain
When the bus pulls up
And the driver explains there's
A plethora of dreaded black ice
In the vicinity
And still you answer
The summons by
Climbing on board

That you are coming
Or going is one
And the same
Whether victimhood
Or enlightenment awaits
Is not but a hair's breadth
Of difference
Even if your seatbelt
Is tightly fastened when it
Comes to a jolt like that
Administered directly
To the head

A Poem Explaining How it Came About I Saw Venus Riding Astride the Crescent Moon Tonight

Jill texted my wife 

And told us to go outside

And there we saw Venus and Mars

Riding astride the crescent moon

And Jill said to me --

   It looks like another
     Moon tonight as if

       Ours should be rising
           In the East

And I wondered for
A moment if perhaps

She might not be right

Because this resembled

No planetary alignment I'd ever

Seen before 

Only a blurry image could
Be captured even with 

A 35 millimeter camera

So this is
Where we're heading 

Distracted by

The bits and bytes  

Circling the globe

We’ve lost our grip

On the most basic

Things our forbearers

Were sure to have known



Like what

A tripartite sighting

Such as this actually foretold

Instead in our modern ignorance 

We must now wait for the greater

Mysteries still to unfold

Weesuck Creek Through the Eyes of a Snowman

A For Sale sign

Swings with abandon

From the arctic blast

That sweeps down

Our block as

Once again

I find myself

Tramping out to

The mouth of the Creek

There I stand more exposed

But find the sky

Rapidly inflating

Overhead revealing the majesty  

Of those first starry beacons

Venus shimmering in the west

While Jupiter ascends  

In the East -- whatever

Such a planetary standoff

Can possibly

Mean to me

At the base of the dock

I’m truly nonplussed

To see these ghostly footprints

Standing in stark relief

Against the pier’s blacktop

Steps clearly leading

Directly to the water’s edge

Then suddenly disappearing

As if some lonely

Snowy wanderer

Had decided to leap

When I realize

What I’m looking

At is an eerie

Negative impression

Of my walk last night

For these ghostly prints  

Merely trace my own steps

Out along the pier
Through yesterday’s storm

My progress thus having

Been made visible

In the trail of twice

Compacted snow

Which alone remained

On the windswept dock

So the first nen

Comes round to see

What the others

Have wrought

Counter-intuitive

But more deeply attuned

To the ultimate truth

Evident in the negative

Aspect made visible

By wind and time

Of the no-self 

As it has been revealed

To the self’s icy stare

Words Written on a Snowy Evening

Drawing by Peter Rippon

The quality of suffering

Is not strained in the least

But falls in a pristine

Blanket of snow along

The banks of Weesuck Creek

I hear it too in the sound

Of the turbid waters

Churning deep underneath

The Bay Avenue dock

Where the ice also clings

To the pilings' tops 

Growing older

It gets harder

To hold reality’s strands

Separate and apart

As the spectrum of light

Keeps shifting about

But tonight I see it clearly

In the strange luminosity

Of this snowy evening

In the jaundiced glare

Of the streetlight

As it spreads across

Notebook’s page

And plashes onto 

The snow banks

Just below