You are invited to a reading of
The Larger Geometry: poems for peace
Featuring
Jim LaVilla-Havelin, Patricia Spears Bigelow, Jeanie Sanders, Rachel Clark, Michael Vecchio, Robert Okaji, d. ellis phelps, and Rebecca Raphael
With Brianna Martinez on flute!
Friday, April 12, 2019 P.M. at The Twig Book Shop, 306 Pearl Parkway #106, San Antonio
Free & open to the public.
I’m delighted to be reading at my favorite San Antonio bookshop in the company of good friends and friends-to-be!
Rain Forest Bridge
To cross
you must first
trust the strands
to hold.
The second tentative
step precedes
the next,
each successive one
gaining strength:
here to
there, now
to then, a summoning of
entreaties
within
one’s faith.
Vapor meets cooler air,
forming droplets,
clouding the far side.
I have feared endings
and the strictures of the unseen,
but here
in this vast
swaying,
I know
one line
bisects the void.
* * *
“Rain Forest Bridge” first appeared in Four Ties Lit Review in August, 2014.
A recording of it may be found on the Four Ties site.
My good friend Ron Evans died last September, leaving behind a lost trove of writings. I received permission to seek publication for a selection of his haiku, which are now published at The Zen Space. Guest editor Daniel Paul Marshall assembled a superb selection of poetry (not just haiku). Check it out!
Diverting Silence
Wren canyons down the morning’s edge, proclaiming dawn.
Unpapered, unfettered, fearless, he abides.
I say “he,” but sexual dimorphism is not apparent in the species.
Accepting signals, we process and choose, freighting gender aside.
Listening requires contextual interpretation, as does belief.
Shrilling to the porch screen, he spears a moth, veers outward.
An acquaintance claims birds are soulless, existing only to serve God.
As temple bells exist solely to announce, and rain, to water lawns.
Faith’s immensity looms in the absence of proof.
Spherical and hollow, suzu bells contain pellets.
The search for truth without error does not preclude fact.
Even tongueless bells ring.
“Diverting Silence” was published in Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art in February 2017.
Shakuhachi Blues
That waver,
like the end of a long
dream flickering to wakefulness,
or an origami crane
unfolding between whiskey
poured and the tale of deceit
and a good woman done wrong.
Air flutters through this bamboo
tube, and it seems I control
nothing. Inhaling, I try again.
A simple instrument that will take a lifetime to learn…
Waiting for the Shakuhachi, I Practice with What I Have
The tone feels round on shorter bottles,
which more closely resemble my shape.
Longnecks pitch lower, while the emptied
pinot requires more controlled air flow.
My grooved fingers fumble in their
search for meaning. I know this silence,
but that one requires more study.
Cool air stumbles in
through the trees.
Ah, autumn’s return.
This first appeared on The Zen Space. Thank you, Marie Marshall, for publishing my work!
Mushrooms I Have Known
Reticent and tired, withdrawn,
dejected, I return.
Emerging overnight from nothing,
then withering back to zero.
Does light incite you?
The shade?
I walk by and say hello.
You do not speak.
This first appeared on the blog in April 2017.
