At one point or another, all of the problems in the world — the homelessness, the poverty, the hunger, the injustice, the inequality, the nationalism, the environmental degradation, the violence, the war — I have helped to cause. Now, even though the cause was here before I arrived, it is time for me to be the uncause, to root out the cause in myself, and see that it is not […]
In the matter of a few hours, a trace of rain, just enough to dampen the surface of the soil, was enough to bring forth another wave of sunflower sprouts. Breaking through, they look like they’re leaping into the unknown, almost as if they’re parachuting skyward, and my up is their down. Is there anything I can imagine that isn’t rooted in my life experience, my observation, my reading, my […]
You see that life is uncertain, and yet you wait to love. As if the news is not all in, and you still might be saved from yourself. But that is the news. Love is your unrealized wealth. “The News” Recently Banned Literature, January 30, 2017 . Have We Met? Wherever you go, however seemingly common the situation or place, give your very best most careful attention to the people […]
It’s a peculiar thing, the urge, perhaps even the need, to make poems of private, personal experiences you know that others, too, have had. After a while, there gets to be an easy inevitability about the process, to the point that the occurrences of poem and experience often overlap and even seem reversed; sometimes it’s almost as if one is remembering the future, or that the past is about to […]
There’s the familiar saying, If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention. To me, just the opposite seems true. When I’m attentive, I’m not angry, I’m aware. And when I’m aware, the root of the problem is revealed. When I say attentive, I don’t mean with such and such a motive or purpose, or desire for a particular outcome; that isn’t attention, but a subtle form of self-glorification, the ego’s […]
