Haiku: On Buddha I

I woke up today.
I will wake up tomorrow.

Beyond, it’s unclear.   

Knowing existence, 

The Buddha had pretty teeth-

Vanity distracts.  

My teeth are on fire.

They distract form the peace around. 

It is hard to chew. 

Water and fire

Are more than we can control, 

And yet we want more. 

Violence in the mind

Shows by violence in the world. 

Make peace in your head. 

I am not your light.

You must find it within you. 

You can teach yourself. 

Upon his last breath, 

Flowers fell on Buddha’s body-

On his face a smile. 

Poem: Wrong Way Earthworm

Sitting on the front porch during a rain, 
a long earthworm meandered out of the irises onto the concrete. 

Knowing that they can drowned like the rest of us breathers, 

I did not interfere, only watched. 

In my time that has been much longer than the life span of a worm (so far),

I have seen many wriggle upon concrete 

only to die away from native earth and dry in the sun.

This one made it several feet away from the soaked ground

 only to stiffen a little and reverse its course back to moisture.

  

As it turned back, it lost the way

 and moved closer to the bricks of the house. 

 

From my point of view, it seemed confused. 

Do I help it or let choice take its course? 

For a time it sought shelter in a crack between the concrete and the bricks, 

but was too large to fit. 

It gave up and moved on, the concrete drawing away the water from its body. 

The trail it left glistened. Then it turned and moved back toward the rain. 

A question of conscience arose. Knowing that higher ground was so near,

do I help? 

If it received help, would it expect the same help in the future? 

What if I wasn’t near? 

Is there something above me watching with the same conundrum?

Poem: A Living Ghost

 I am a living ghost. 
A walking memory of someone else who says, “Remember when he—“
I engage with and move past other ghosts, but they have stronger ties to existence. 
They do not know that when they go, others will continue. 
I know. I have. I will. Until I do not.
Made of star stuff and touched by an angel is all bunk. 
Some say that energy cannot be destroyed, and we are energy. 
They mix science with religion and comport being now with being after. 
I do not feel like energy.
I feel like the empty space between a nucleus and its electrons. 
There are forces and particles moving through me, but I am zero space. 
At least, I am a location. 
This place is haunted by me. 

For now.

Haiku: Birds

I think about birds
Birds are not the same at night
At night they are words

Words in the darkness 

Are only sounds in the air

Waiting for an ear 

Whispers on the wind

Hiding the secrets of flight

And truth of being. 

Birds are glorious 

As long as they are shitting

On other people.

Poem: The Unseen Construction

 Surely as the red fox walks our streets at night and doesn’t realize that humans built the houses and made the roads, there are constructions in our world built by others that we do not recognize, but just as assuredly we walk through and ignore the builders thinking only of the moment and our stomachs.

Haiku: On Death I

Leaves fall from the tree.
Existence is all I have known.
We are not the tree.

Food gives no pleasure
When someone you love suffers.
Tears salt everything.

Go out with a bang, 
Or go out with a whimper,
It is all the same.

Halfway

Sitting under a redbud tree looking at a branch from the underneath, silhouetted against the clouds, I see an ant making its way toward the end of the branch and wonder how that little body could contain enough energy to complete its journey; because unknown to it, it has traveled to the end only to realize it is halfway back to the beginning.