The birds sing to you
In early morning
Telling you of eternity
Like the eagle that loops
In slow, wide circles
Over the range
Of bluegray mountains
Or the fish
That suddenly appear
On the surface of the glittering lake.
Holy fish
That swim under cover of water
Doing God’s will all day.
Holy and hidden
They animate the darkest depths and prove
That what seems nothing is everything.

In a dream
The streets
Are a film noir
With dark doorways
Hiding from the sun
And a sign above a
Shuttered shop offering
Salud en Alma y Cuerpo.
The streets are known only to themselves
Where old buildings hold secrets
In a grammar of fire escapes
And curtained windows.

Deep below the waves
Where bodies and their souls
Have fallen
Weighted down
With resignation
An eel
With fierce eyes
Peers from its place
Of concealment
The face of an angry
Old man
Roused from sleep
By noisy children.

Kobutomushi

Moonglow
Nightshow
A beam of light in Tokyo.
Hidden in gloom’s dark
On the surface of tree bark--
The kobutomushi

Summer lightning
Fireflies ascending
Slowly it moves revealing
The aggressive form
Of carapace and horn--
The kobutomushi

Ikkyu's crow caws--
Satori--
Now to the world of sake.

Sakura

Under the haze of heaven
The pink and white flowers
Fall in the spring air like spent days
Their petals swept away with the wind

What anesthetic
In the field of cherry trees
While lying under the pink and white petals?
What can soothe,
What can ease,
In the wind-blown flowers?

Would this be the place
In the field of cherry
To relinquish a broken spirit
In the haze and the wind
And the soft falling petals?

Haiku by Issa

Katatsuburi
Soro
Soro
Nobore
Fujinoyama

Snail
Climb slowly, slowly
Up Mount Fuji

St. John of the Cross:
If a man wishes to be sure
Of the road he walks
He must close his eyes
And walk in the dark.

Thales was right
We are all water
Melting like a wicked witch
As time itself melts like a Dalinian clock
The hand touched
Liquefying in your watery grasp
No solid ground but it moves
In a changing river of time.

Where do the days take you?
Through youth and age
Rolling like a marble
Or flying like a wind-swept
Sheet of newspaper
Over the sharp-edged roofs
Of old buildings.

You take one step
In mindfulness
One movement
Concentrating on each
Discrete act
Breaking time down
Now, only now
One step
Feeling under the sole
The hard, polished floor
Only now, just now
As your mind races
To tomorrow

Flies

The main thing
Is their persistence
How when swatted
They return
With renewed purpose
In their search for flesh,
For food--
Pure will
Clinging, darting,
Seizing the air
In frantic rotation,
Invading the nostrils,
The ears--
Any opening will do
For shameless opportunists.