foggy morning:
a figure approaches...
nope, just a shrub!
Category Archives: Perception
Shapeshifter [Haiku]

light & shadow play
across the mountains —
redrawing ridges.
The Cave [Free Verse]
Jagged window
on the world:
All light and sound
deadened,
but from one opening --
The cave mouth.
From behind
nothing stirs,
nothing glows,
shadows are subsumed
by shadow.
Eyes and mind
frame the cave mouth,
making the mind
a cave within a cave:
layered silence
layered remoteness,
and all input of a single,
common source.
How many caves deep might
this thing go?
Upriver [Haiku]

chugging upriver,
past karst spires, the boaters’
time seems to slow.
PROMPT: Good At
1.) Changing my mind. This wouldn’t be noteworthy except that there seems to be a stigma attached to adults changing their minds about a thing (even in the face of new, better, or first -time information.) It’s considered “wishy-washy.”
2.) Learning. I love learning and I devote a lot of time to it. Beyond youth, a skill for it requires a capacity for what Shunryu Suzuki called “beginner’s mind” — a state a lot of people seem to run from, rather than toward.
3.) Adopting another’s point of view. Truth be told, I wouldn’t really say I’m good at this, but the bar is quite low.
4.) Operating my body.
5.) Going the places that scare me.
NOTE: I thought I was better at humility, but the fact that I’m willing to answer the question speaks to the contrary.
“Are you the new person drawn toward me?” by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with, take warning, I am surely far
different from what you suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your
ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become
your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would
be unalloy'd satisfaction?
Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this facade,
this smooth and tolerant manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real
ground toward a real heroic man?
Have you no thought, O dreamer, that is
may be all maya, illusion?
“Before I got my eye put out –” (336) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]
Before I got my eye put out --
I liked as well to see
As other creatures, that have eyes --
And know no other way --
But were it told to me, Today,
That I might have the Sky
For mine, I tell you that my Heart
Would split, for size of me --
The Meadows -- mine --
The Mountains -- mine --
All Forests -- Stintless stars --
As much of noon, as I could take --
Between my finite eyes --
The Motions of the Dipping Birds --
The Morning's Amber Road --
For mine -- to look at when I liked,
The news would strike me dead --
So safer -- guess -- with just my soul
Opon the window pane
Where other creatures put their eyes --
Incautious -- of the Sun --
Fly [Lyric]

They say that each and every single fly
Has five thousand lenses in each eye:
A three-sixty view from toes to rump,
And thus I become the fly-swatting chump.






