How This Works

Now dawn starts in on a tree,
Not a rare tree, just a tree,

On a street or in a yard,
On a hill, edge of a cliff.

Watch how this works on clear days.
Yes, the tip first, but not straight

Down from then, more side to side,
Sun works its way in, out through twigs

And then, it’s all lit. You did
Or did not see it. That’s it.

Stones and Green

Head, mind, world—a world in each,
Each in the world. Head has mind,
But is slow to see that mind

Lives, not in the head, that head,
But in heads, links lots of them,
Which is how mind’s in the world.

Mind has been slow to see world
Is not what it had in mind,
And that head’s part of the world.

Poor head, poor stone, poor live thing,
Part of the world in the world,
Part of the mind in the mind.

Make Tracks

One way it’s been said:
To live is to hunt—
Prey, host, sun, soil, wet—

To search. If you search,
As long as you search,
You’re life. If you stop

For more than a pause,
More than sleep, a rest,
For too long, you’re death,

Which means that no goal,
And no end to goals,
Can be reached for good,

Not for a slime mold,
A whale, or an oak.
Not for a Zen monk.

Give the death cults that—
From the first Nile tombs
To saints at the stake,

The ones who fixed hopes
On the far side saw
This side holds no rest.

But what would that be,
To be thoughts that know
They’re thoughts, on a cloud,

In the House of Dust,
In the glow of God,
To not have to hunt,

Not feel the least need
To search for more fuel,
To seek out new life?

To know that one knows
Is to want to know
More. No search, no more.

One More Fleck Through the Sieve

It’s a fun game while it lasts.
Hound change, trap it, cut it in

Half. Split and split it to shards,
Small as the least bit of sec

You can get—there’s still some change
Left. Give up and turn your back;

Here it comes. It swells, a flood,
A moon on a hill, fire, war.

Spin and cut it back down, now,
Close to the quick, to just now.

Ah, but in that spin, you changed.
You found you sat on a cliff,

Knew how you got there but not
Why or where you should go next.

What day, what time is it? What
Did you mean to do with this?