This Book Is Mine to Mend

This book is mine to mend;
With tape I fixed it up.
But truly, life did lend
The ink and paper pulp;
For now it’s in this form,
For now it’s in my hand . . .
With time it will be borne
To future’s varied land.

(September 25, 2025)

When Given to Time

Some mistakes in the moments
after being made
are a river of coarse current

but now this one
a mild stream crossed
without much effort or thought
while carrying in a pouch
the lesson it gave
imprinted by the pain once felt.

(September 24, 2022)

As We Are

I find myself in autumn’s open room,
inside a sun-dappled forest.

Many a leaf, released into the air,
drifts from the canopy,
meandering down through the trees.

I feel like the forest 
accepts us as we are,
like leaves finding support
as they come to the ground.

(September 29, 2025)

Life’s Terrain

It may not be
the landscape you expected,

but there will be birds
and the ever-different sky.

(September 16, 2025)

Reading Chu Shu Chen

It is evening. Sunlight
still touches the treetops.
Why am I drawn
to her anguish,
her loneliness? She is
wrapped in it. What am I
wrapped in? Perhaps
my busyness beguiles me.
My own loneliness, unacknowledged.
A cricket’s song rings out.

(Summer 2014)

This Morning Light

Early morning, 
eggshell blue, pours in
through the gauze curtain.
I prepare a cup of coffee.
I put out a couple books.
This, my routine. 
My mind is like a leaf, 
on a brook, drifting toward the day.

written September 9, 2025

When Nothing Is Perfect, Still You Try

I admit, it’s hard to hold it right
but I would say you’re doing alright.
You’re fascinated by a little spill
when your cup is some sort of full.

written August 25, 2025

Denim in Autumn

Love the cozy feeling
of slipping on
a pair of jeans
for the first time
after a hot summer.

written September 2, 2025

With Hope to Enjoy Them

These moments:

fond flowers
in memory’s vase.

written August 14, 2025

Along a Walk There Was a Bush in Bloom

Along a walk there was a bush in bloom—
This flowering, the second of the year.
The color brightened nature’s sunny room—
Plus me!—as summer’s cloak I also wear.
Some say to be reborn one has to die,
But here in summer’s robust strength and green
Appear new blooms held up against a sky;
My mid-life body sees this flourishing,
And thinks, Perhaps for change one need not die—
Instead one finds a good way to restart:
Sincerely will I grow beneath that sky
With my resources of the mind and heart,
And with a prayer, begin myself again
And bloom within a summer mind of green.

written August 1, 2025

This Moment Too

At some point the task
becomes less about making
everything better, and more
about learning to better enjoy.

Outside, insects sing
in the thick August night,
here where suburbia
nestles against wild forest.

It reminds me 
of lush evenings
in my childhood.

I tell myself,
this moment, here, is enough.
You are enough.
It’s okay to accept this beauty.

written August 11, 2025

Generative

A ray of light
    Shined in his room—
Seemed so bright
    Within that womb.
I think he might
    Leave it soon—
World of light,
    Sun and moon.

written July 26, 2025

What We Are Given

What do birds on wing
sense of air’s wild currents?
Are there gaps,
are there lifts,
that affect the ways
the birds flow through the air?
​
The currents of living
are not always smooth
but we must not deny
a set of wings
to navigate it well.

written July 23, 2025

On a Beach in His Mind

Lost in Spirit’s land
Looking for direction,
He is offered a hand
To help with introspection.
He notices the plan
Doesn’t call for perfection—
But drawn in some sand:
Beauty’s reflection.

written June 10, 2025

Proper Read (A Book Came in the Mail)

Small in size, a book of poetry,
bound up, stiff and tight, by the spine,
was brittle beyond its thirty years.
I opened it, and it split,
and I became careful, reading it
partly open. But that’s no way
to read a book, so I opened it wide,
without regard. Sections began
pulling away from the paper spine,
pages relaxed and fell away from each other
along the seam. My tightly wound book,
part by part, page by page, let go and relaxed.
I think I will keep the pages together, loosely.

written June 17, 2025

Refreshed

I’m trying to get my mood right
before I get to the forest
but when I get to the forest
my mood will get right.
And so I get to her
with my dusty house of mind,
and she opens
the drapes and windows,
and lets sunshine in with raw air.
She hands me a broom
and a new day begins.

written July 3, 2025

The Sleeping Trees

friends of the same earth
bear the winter well
​
patiently
​
allowing snow to gather
upon their bareness
​
resting
​
in a white mosaic
that will only last as long
​
as the wind doesn’t blow
as the air remains cold

written early 2014

Day Three of Heavy Heat

It’s hot and humid
here on the East Coast.
Thank goodness for AC,
but staying inside leaves me feeling cooped up.
Tired and lethargic, I drowse on the couch
with a book of Japanese poems,
my thumb marking the page.
Eyes still closed,
I awake from sleep
and wiggle my thumb to know
that the book is still there.

written June 25, 2025

Opening to Hope

I think back
To something that was intractable,
And how, despite that “fact”
Something else became possible.

Although hard to believe
In details changing, per se,
Perhaps I may still leave
Room for a better day.

written April 22-23, 2025

A Duck

I see, down below
A duck alone on the pond,
And I feel a sort of bond
Over this way we both know:
A solitary way we go—
On he goes, and on,
Quietly paddling around the pond,
Adding ripples to the flow.
Then he takes to flight,
And flaps his winged beauty
Up even with my eyes,
Before lifting above the tree tips’ height.
Be well, solitary—
May you go well and thrive.

written May 5, 2025