| Contents Place
A Cool, Blue Time
Philosophy
Poetry
Double Bind
Bill's Advise
The Little People of the Trees
There was an Old Man
Morning Song
A Conversation
Free Speech
The Distant Echo of Words
Sugarloaf
By the Waters
Prospects for an Adjustment
Going Home
Out from Pyrrhotown
The Hollow Echoes of Decision
Breathing Creek
Uncle Festus
The Great Pine Forest
Ashram
Winter Vacation
Little One of the Sea
Pyrrho Among the Pious
PLACE
What use is this land anymore?
Do I care about it anymore?
It used to be our food and our life.
Now it is just a commodity,
a factor of production for distant markets.
This town was founded on land.
Each plot was related to a farm.
Now most are allocated to workers
in placeless, abstract institutions.
And our lives revolve around
consuming and planning to consume
things produced far from here.
And our inner, deeper life
is very little tied to this place.
It is sucked out through electronic portals
into a placeless gathering of images.
We are no longer a community
making our own way
with a little surplus to trade.
We are washed back and forth
by forces beyond our comprehension,
or anyone's comprehension.
A COOL, BLUE TIME
The time was a cool time.
My heart instead of its usual
insistent beating was cool.
There were birds fluttering about,
their feathers drifting in the air,
getting caught in my hair,
lightly touching my blue skin.
It was a cool, blue time.
I went down to the waters to drink,
to sing of the old place.
There were many weepers there,
singing of the old place.
I think we each sang of
a different but same place.
In the distance a yellow light
was rising above the waters,
now yellow and blue,
yellow and blue in waves.
My feet dangling in the water
could not move.
A woman there looked at me
with a strange eye.
In the breezes her hair
was a brown motion.
PHILOSOPHY
Some say words have power.
Others that power controls words.
All I see is a summer shower
and a scattering of birds.
POETRY
I don't need poetry.
Poetry doesn't need me.
But a wildflower
will find its opportunity.
DOUBLE BIND
Because overstated, patented
by frequent use and old,
we are made mute though in its
language our lives are told.
Because we would not make light of
a clarity new to us
we must approach obliquely its
ancient commonness.
BILL'S ADVICE
Think of spirits and dreams and death
and imagination
as rays split from the same light
by the body's prism.
Think of the plurality of
inner and outer worlds
as a complex flux captured by
the thin net of our words.
Select from texts and counter texts
a slice of reality
and gathering in your desert tents
worship its fragile beauty.
THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF
THE TREES
I have found you cannot please
the little people of the trees.
For if they spy you through the glass
as they on summer breezes pass
they will want your bedtime dreams
to dance with them on moonlight beams.
So if you hear their rustling whispers
do not heed their bristly whiskers.
It is better to stay safe in your room
than dance with them under the golden moon.
THERE WAS AN OLD MAN
There was an old man
who everyone knows
would shout out loud
when you stepped on his toes.
He would shout out loud
when you stepped on his toes
and stick in your face
his strawberry nose.
There was an old man
who would huff and puff
when any little children
got into his stuff.
He would huff and puff
as everyone knows
and then stick in your face
his strawberry nose,
yes, stick in your face
his strawberry nose.
MORNING SONG
Little, little munchkin,
lost in the labyrinth
of the thick bedcovers,
what will become of her?
"I can't see east.
I can't see west.
I must be flying!"
A CONVERSATION
Do we survive?
I am alive.
What will we find?
Your own free mind.
What should we do?
Give each his due.
What can we know?
What you can show.
What of prophets?
Ask who profits.
An absolute?
We still dispute.
FREE SPEECH
Let me state it plainly:
you have a right to speak.
Some will love it.
Some will hate it.
They'll ignore it mainly.
THE DISTANT ECHO
OF WORDS
The geese on the creek.
The poison ivy berries.
The woodpecker beak.
The winds the tree carries.
The water's rush and swell.
Brown leaves shaped like birds.
The squirrel's red tail.
The distant echo of words.
SUGARLOAF
We cut you bare
a hundred years ago.
Now you look down
as you cover with snow
at the old town
with its windows aglow
that does not care
what history you know.
BY THE WATERS
By the waters
by the marble pavilions
among the lemon trees
speaking of lexicons.
Behind muslin curtains
I heard them mumbling
reciting ancient stories
speaking worlds into being.
I found the one who spoke my life.
"Can it be changed?" I asked.
He looked up for a moment
and returned to his task.
PROSPECTS FOR AN ADJUSTMENT
He walked on a spinning plane,
on smooth steel up and down he walked,
jostling the others, jostling,
"Excuse me, excuse me," he said.
"This is a song that never ends.
Yes, it goes on and on my friends.
Some people started singing it
and have forgotten what it meant."
Lines of children balancing themselves
on the ground, singing and laughing.
He looked around for the controls,
the sky blurring, the children singing.
"This is a song that never ends.
Yes, it goes on and on my friends.
Some people started singing it
and have forgotten what it meant."
On a cool night he counted the stars
on the top of a runaway train.
With a certain serenity he counted.
Forgetting himself, he counted again.
GOING HOME
I still think of it as going home,
off the highway, going home!
Down the back roads into the hills,
safe from sadness and the world's ills.
I still see it through a child's eyes.
I see the clear blue Christmas skies
and the smell of coal in the air,
and all good food comes from there!
And the house is full of talking
and the air is full of laughing.
It seems I was always free from care
and bold and brave and willing to dare
cold nights warm on the backporch bed.
And when one of the people said,
"Oh, you're Mrs. Rector's grandson!"
I knew that I was really someone.
OUT FROM PYRRHOTOWN
Once when I journeyed out from Pyrrhotown
I found you in that place of pain and peace.
It seemed at root that each of our lives
had been posed as a problem of diversity,
yours of people, mine of opinions,
but both on the forge of struggle and pain.
Since then we two have journeyed together,
side by side or at a distance of mind.
And when I am far in my native land
I look over the hills to where you live
in the land of multi-colored roses
where even now pain can have a purpose.
RIGHTEOUS ANGER
The hurly-burling man,
the rolly-polly man,
large and offensive,
pushing back the air
in his wake.
He rolls, he rumbles,
he pushes down trees.
He turns a put-down
into a test of strength.
"To hell with you!"
He rolls, he rumbles,
he shatters rare china.
He turns their contempt
into a badge of honor.
"To hell with you!".
THE HOLLOW ECHOES
OF DECISION
In the desire
there is a whir
of round and round,
of ignorant bliss,
of looking and looking,
of all wants found
and all faults dismissed.
There is peculiar hope,
a peculiar amnesia,
a strange looking the
other way when learning,
a narrowing of scope
in a desperate hysteria
of needing and needing.
There is suspicion
of caution and reflection,
no waiting, no waiting.
Waiting is loosing
the chance, maybe the last.
We cannot be dissuaded,
jaded by the terrible past.
And later in the cool time,
after years and intertwined ropes
of commitment and obligation,
after the tremulous revision,
we set aside such hopes
and live and live with
the hollow echoes of decision.
BREATHING CREEK
The town said, "I am well connected."
The creek said, "I underlie you."
The man said, "I have been distracted."
The state said, "I will keep an eye on you."
UNCLE FESTUS
You old philosopher
falling into the ditch!
Still they paid you to
tell them they knew nothing
as you performed the rites
of the civic religion,
a good citizen, solid,
with a hollow core.
Still I grant you the peace
that comes from not caring
and the peculiar safety
that comes from not choosing.
The existential hero,
the pragmatic hero,
the dancing bear balancing
between dogma and the void.
THE GREAT PINE FOREST
I will speak to you again
of the passionate appropriation.
I will speak once again
of the objective uncertainty.
From the surface of Venus!
From the pine forest clearing!
From the path to the Eucharist!
From the haunts of the swamp man!
When the gray men stepped
from behind the veil
to tell us to sing the songs
of a technical education.
It is strange at last to
settle in middle age
on the insights of youth
gleaned from a dream of Denmark.
ASHRAM
Meditate on the word in your breath.
Gather for satsang.
Listen to the inner music, see the inner light.
Gather for knowledge.
"And we're spacing out
in the kitchen
and we don't even feel ashamed.
Tralala. Tralala. Tralala."
At the household meeting
we ate a simple meal.
We discussed and decided
it was OK to be nude.
"And we're spacing out
in the foyer
and we don't even feel ashamed.
Tralala. Tralala. Tralala."
WINTER VACATION
Now we have come to the
season of poetry.
Now the garden sleeps
and dreams fly the hawk's sky.
Now the stolid prisoner
is given his winter furlough
and the dormant vines and tangles
tremble to light and grow.
Now the little ones buzz
and titter and dance
and the wise old man shakes
the hundred worlds with his glance.
LITTLE ONE OF THE SEA
Little one of the sea
rise with the tide in me.
Far the waves rise and fall
down to the timeless wall.
And the delicate web of song
will last for the real as long.
The gray sea, the blue sea, the green
from my eyes beyond what is seen.
Spread thin in the salty wind,
flit far where the spirits send.
And swim where the sea oats grow
beyond what the clerics know.
PYRRHO AMONG THE PIOUS
Among the worshipers,
I worship.
Among the meditators,
I meditate.
I plant my seeds,
tend the crop,
and enjoy the harvest,
without worry.
I see skills, practices,
linguistic structures.
They see truths, lies,
hidden realities.
Watch us, look at the results.
Do you see a difference?
The difference is in talk,
and in my diffident eyes.
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