this dream we are born into

a man there is keeping his silence silence is keeping her man held holding beholden whole forgets to leave his hut stunned by light blazing on the doorway to a world of dew nenuphars awaken

' zazen is the dharma gate of easeful joy.' - eihei dogen the year that ends the year that begins under what sky ever will they meet there where no thing begins no thing ends verdant hills and birdsongs freely come and disappear unremembered yet a place closest to you there this empty seat pemuteran, bali, 31 december 2025

sky is getting thicker to shelter trees night reaches closer  rest given to everything tiles on star-lit roofs nettles cobbles on the pathway ei-tai ji temple alpes-de-haute-provence

fingers plumes of yearning beyond the body reach nothing to grasp nothing to yield they know it now we know it now misremembered our very mind to this or is there another shore we are recalled exiting exile may take a little longer they know it now we know it now qui sommes nous images resurfacing on spume nameless and unclaimed we are ballotés ici et là tongue rolling over itself something veils us in daylight the wait for waves to intercede

sleep will not be part of what darkness has to offer the hour lying restless in a cot next to sandlewood buddha your gaze cast down as you sit stifly on the pane outside these walls fireflies mingle their glow with stars clustering over heavy boughs shadows deeper in this tiny cell where death slowly restores me

dispersed and free free of ancestry of smoke free chimney smoke rubble smoke exhaled from earth from lungs of prayers you drift eastwards here the mute have their kingdom here we are birthed into and out of strife out of redemption here your hands are empty empty of clouds empty of dawn melody brims with empty heart joyous with empty empty alone knows alone stays

' learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self.' fukenzazengi / eihei dogen light does it enter does go out does it ever leave the dark take the light and turn it inward we heard the master say moving inward the outer moving outward the inner is this movement is movement another name we give to what we can not grasp inscrutable for incessable turning it in is what returns you to emergence of light where inward and outward inflow   this is th

birds' path you follow call it treading flying falling you are born here with branches vernal notes adrift in the evening breeze unseen traces unfold song-clusters in echo return to what we never leave silence its one body one sphere from one end to another azure it's what knows no end mirrors coming passing abiding nowhere chiming bells of stones meld with sighs of grass slowly waking in the prairie throbbed with morning light alentejo

in a letter of intent addressed to friends to friends to come healed of wounds of wounds to come this softening of pain surrendering to a smile in brief repentant tone harms undoable done passing on blames to gales to tide-awakening mistral where roars gather deliver the unspoken word unroll sea scrolls of seas to come amis où sont les amis java

over and again i read the poem you didn’t write write yet keep sending between it's unwritten lines lushness of spring fall’s transparency evenness of pain in summer’s full glow in it i hear the wind roam without direction shaking early leaves with uprooted years feeding our path with snow nowhere a shelter except in waiting for the poem never to be written never to be read murmured on quiet lips restless echoes of stirrings unaccounted by strife nowhere a question of us spec

dust on your shoulders mound of incense ash at your feet no flowers to ornate your vase bouddha an oversight telling of my state of mind as without so within chaos with chaos merging seamlessly  an early morning breeze ruffles the curtain ubud, bali, 2014 pak ou caves, luang prabang, laos