a murder of crows harasses a hawk,
out to steal the meal that wriggles in its talons.
the hawk giving its all to fighting crow will lose its squirming prey.
no crow is match for a hawk,
but no hawk is match for the murder,
and so all birds go hungry.
That stubble, once a forest full of trees,
now rides the hills down to the turd brown sea.
I’d heard the drumming coming from the banks.
An army of axe men formed into ranks.
Firing up engines of desolation,
scarring the earth in ragged ablation.
And down the river, those drums went silent.
Modern man wondered where the tribes all went.
In ancient temples they’d preached mysteries.
Lost to the burning of the histories,
by purists who’d gathered in mankind’s flanks
to massacre all of the mainstream cranks.
And they sang their songs of faith and nation
to the tune of engines of desolation.
gleaming steel
plow blade turns the dirt, but
dirt taxes the blade
a weed pulled
in due time, beats one hundred
plucked too late
stalk stubble,
the haggard mourning face
of the field
mile high crazy quilt
viewed by climbing passengers,
brooding nature’s mood
when light is short,
but field days are marathon
harvest gloom
white space,
where readers’ eyes go to
rewrite stories
when thoughts cease,
senseless pictures form;
minds abhor stillness
Plato’s pupil knew:
“nature abhors a vacuum,”
if not much else
the fog wall,
flush with the land’s end,
invites guesses
endless dunes,
stretching far as eyes can see
yet never the same
birthing Buddha,
distant looming mountains
breed wisdom
glassy lake,
mirroring boat hulls,
a world below?
standing aside
as beam-totting porters
pass us on the trail
tea-house quarters
cozy and quaint lodging,
’til snoring starts
cool air in face,
trudging up — oblivious
to cloud-freed snowcap
glacier gone,
scoured trench, gouged in earth —
maybe next year
monkey overlook,
from sacred stupa to
the human warren
harsh silence,
lost beats steal word’s
authenticity
silent snows
seen through crossed muntins,
drifting eerily
fog resting on
Coconut Grove’s soil until
chased by dawn’s din
ridge rows,
in waning shades of gray
end in white void
creek burbles
hushed to unheard drips
from icicles
enshrouded in cloud,
a Chinese painting transplanted to India,
gnarled evergreens grow from cracked granite
like the bonsai that twists into a broad bloom of foliage,
i’d have thought the great white space, simple shapes, and gorgeous deformity
wouldn’t appeal to the Indian mindset —
so taken with vibrancy and fullness,
and yet crowds throng round,
staring in wonder,
ensnared by the same scene as
Shen Zhou when he painted, “Poet on a Mountaintop”
or
Fan Kuan as he painted, “Travelers Among Mountains and Streams,”
like two lovers fixated on one moon.
boot crunch
‘a cloudless night,’
he concluded
old coat of snow
nary a track in sight
beauty abandoned
snow blind
trudging and slogging
pure torture
crust of snow
over dry powder
bone cold
drifting flakes
add a wedge wall
to a farmhouse
If you discover an experience for which the mind relentlessly snaps back to the now, do it.
You are that experience. Any fissure between you and it will heal together — a decreasing entropy unseen in mountains. Crevasse. Cleft. Crevice. Scratch. Scar. Smoothness.
If your wild mind becomes ordered by the gravitational pull of the moment — a sinkhole of now formed of a vortex of sensory experience — pursue that thing.
Srinagar,
drifting on Dal Lake,
mirror of mountains
blossomed branch bobs,
twisting on wind as a bee
hovers, seeking sync
hill station hut
rain trounces the ground
lulling reveries
monkeys grooming
in a triangle, and I wonder
will they turn on 3?
from Shimla town
summer leaves hide the giant
orange overseer
