#2479 -- walking the old post road

 

2479

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walking the old post road

 

the way underleaf and the way grows over

 

foot massage, balance challenge

 

bones of all the years laid here

to glory all who’ve made the way

 

the scythes and the spades and the stones they brought

little offerings for time –  

that’s the way  

 

singing’s unseen, high in the trees

 

walking the old road

made like a stream

those hard arrows of rain will make it

 

crevice of moss out of light

 

glimpse of the blinding through bamboo

leaves me this second sun

to go on with

 

see a man carrying his bicycle

up the steep stones – taihen!

doesn’t he know NO WHEELS!

 

it won’t matter why you’ve come

who you serve

what errand you run

 

the way will make you a pilgrim

#2478 -- two poem drafts at Moto Hakone

 

2478

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two poem drafts at Moto Hakone

 

on the cedar way

 

traffic roar

Sunday gridlock serene

between us and the lake

 

tree for ink painting

lost in breeze

view of an old eruption

 

dragonfly caught in a web

caught in the bright

midmorning now

 

 

 

 

on temple steps

 

the emptiness is a mirror of mind

 

here’s a chill on the last of the lake

 

it comes to me that

 

a wall of wishes hung

and some throw coins to bow

 

a queue and a couple of claps

for a god

 

little dog carried up the steep temple stairs

panting in time with its mistress

just now I wish I were you

#2477 -- to do dusk

 

2477

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to do dusk

Hakone

 

light as depicted

 

the gate in the water lit

 

now eye to rise

 

edge through these colours

till sky

 

fisherfolk voluble fading

 

watch wisping

   the angles

 

last grey before gone

 

crane neck in the vanish

 

and high

high over us all

who’ll name this first star?

 

look harder

look now into the night

soon these many friends appear

 

who wouldn’t worship all this?

 

 

 

.

 

 

escaping the dust of Edo

 

finding oneself in fresh air

 

not Ōbon

but the mountain’s electric

 

a two stroke engine sudden beside me

to show what age we’re in

#2476 -- I have forgotten the word for wheel

 

2476

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I have forgotten the word for wheel

 

the city’s spaghetti

I’m a potato

I live in a rabbit hutch

 

such a long way up from the floor

 

you could call it arrested development

 

bending to bow to bend

 

I was coming from that time

had the hat to prove

 

under the ground

learn to steer without stars

 

the law against a question

must never be set down

 

#2475 -- a meaningless life

 

2475

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a meaningless life

 

same river, old moon

 

on another screen                                                                        

see all the others I see

 

it’s only the same sun rises

 

do it in my sleep, you can

watch carefully

 

throes of the physical

leading to more

 

watch carefully

and see the past

 

how we’re unfolded here

 

though even the same stars shine

 

there are parts of the day

 

just turn around

we’re there

 

make a face

that’s you

 

take the pills

and fly

#2474 -- a little giggle with the clouds

 

2474

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a little giggle with the clouds

ekphrastic for Togo Seiji’s 1929 ‘Surrealistic Stroll’

 

how sexlessly a moon declines

as leapt for

 

to dance is to bright the shapes

flight takes

 

house is just one shape

   no more

 

you will look up to see

there will be no shadow to cast

#2473 -- the spectacle

 

2473

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the spectacle

 

the sky that was always there comes on

 

no one has ever seen this before

 

it is opening, ever opening

 

it’s only the eyes of wonder for life

 

it’s as has been guessed where none ever know

 

we are sudden with the worlds

 

they’re coming, we’re back there

 

great joy, touch lightly

 

you have to be falling to be caught

 

you’ll need to jump to land