We, Too, Found This Room

In spite of the gloom,
But now that we’re here,
Will you let us in?

You wrote to us and
Wrote to us and wrote,
But we were vague, then.

Now we’re here, cold, clear
As the snow that melts
In streams fish still swim,

Here, next to just such
A stream right now, where
We perch and watch trout.

We got past the gate
And paid not a cent.
We perch on our rock

In pines on the moss,
Just us and the fish.
Will you let us in?

Lose the Threads

Do you like your world
In well-sewn clothes, cut
To fit to a t,

Well-made, of good cloth—
Fine silk, drape, tight weave—
A closed dress that breathes?

Or would it suit you
To have your world tossed
In some hand-me-downs,

Frayed sacks and loose shapes,
Not quite robes, not quite
Tents, cinched at the waist?

For the first, you’ll need
To count your gold, count
All things, use brass tacks,

Test thoughts, work in teams,
Dot and cut the lines
That split did and seemed.

But, if you give up
On your world, half-dressed
In wraps, sweats, and rags,

You’ll need to stay home
And hide or leave home
For good. You’ve got poems.

In the No State

When a bird takes a short bath
In a high creek just past dawn
(They do this, it’s a real thing),

It looks a bit like a dog
The way it shakes, but it shakes
To work the wet in and not,

Like the dog, to shake drops out.
The bird fluffs its chest and wings
While eye-deep in the fast stream,

Splish, splash, then hops out, flies off.
The flight’s the best part to watch,
A freight plane with all the tanks filled.

It’s odd. The same birds will take
Dust baths to get rid of bugs.
What’s the bath in the creek for?

Not to add lift, that’s for sure.
And the bird might drink, might not.
It has a splash. It flies off.

Is this like trips to the gym?
One of those strange things folks do
To build strength, find the flow state?

The birds that do this, do it
On their own. Not a group thing,
That dawn bath in a fast creek.

It’s rare to catch, but you can,
In the high, pine woods in spring.
You have to be in the no

State as well—an hour you waste
On a rock, no snacks, no books,
No screens, no watch. No planned sit,

Just, what-do-you-know, you were
On a walk, you stopped, got lost
In your thoughts, then lost your thoughts.

That’s when you might see a bird
Take a creek bath at your feet,
And that’s when, too, you might not.

Just Stop It—Don’t Take Stock

All kinds of folks seem to like
To play at the kinds of folks

They aren’t, to act out the scenes
From lives they don’t live, can’t know,

But think they might like, an hour.
Not once done this? Good for you,

If that’s true. And is it true?
When it’s you that’s the role played,

By or not by you, is when
It starts to feel a bit strange.

You act you. Then they act you,
Or what they think is like you,

Or what they think one like you
Would do, should do, ought to do.

Then you do, too. You’re not you,
And they’re not you, and you’re not

Them. It’s all a sham, down to
These bare bones of you and them,

These terms used, the you, the them.
You’re not an act or at play.

There’s a house used for a stage
On which you and them get played.

What a Muse Meant

To say was not
What a poem said—
What a poem said
Was what a muse

Would have said if
A muse lived, if
A soul lived, if
A name could live

Once named, just since
It had been named,
Like God, say, or
Truth, Dao, or pi.

A muse would laugh
If she could, if
She wrote a poem
She made her home.