I. Confucius
Confucius says, “Man who moves
one foot at a time
always have balance.” I am puzzled
by his cryptic arrangement of syllables,
the obscurity of his syntax –
but I am most startled by
the quiet blaze of content,
the fierceness of the softness
in his eyes.
II. Lao Tzu
He explains that the Way
is in every breath, every step
along the knife-edge of this […]
The teapot yawnsexactly where I left it,having slept through my absence more faithfully than a cat.The paintings on the wallsfeign stillness
and the photographed figures […]
Sitting alone on the edge of a dock
as early morning fog rolls
over a lake as still as a whisper,
you can’t see the other shore –
no horizon,
simply grey water blending
into grey fog
into grey sky,
an opening into nothingness.
You can imagine how you would look
from the other side
(if there was one):
a solitary, unmoving figure,
kept company only by his […]
Sleep is averting its eyes
just like you were,
refusing to hypnotize me into tomorrow.
My eyes can’t stop flicking through
the broken pieces of this night,
the fragments that were
almost perfect. Tonight had other plans,
set us up to fall
into the surface of its image
and shatter it on impact.
My apologies don’t fit the pieces
back together.
The sleep I rushed to greet
at […]
skittish and disheveled,
the cats on your front porch are
like strangers in a bar
on the wrong side of town –
every movement is a stand-off
some grudgingly accept companionship,
and others fight off competition
for food and space
some accept your affection
and other step gingerly around it
those are the ones
who would last in the world:
the ones who sit above and removed
from […]
