Ambulance
Passes
Lights and
Siren
Up hill to
Hope
Perhaps some
Will be found
Saturday, September 26, 2026
άγιος
(For Robert Lax)
Dying twenty six
Years ago today
You probably
Forgot to
Leave milk
For the cat
By your
Unlocked door
On
Patmos
My saint
Friend
combing
sleep
at times
elides night
passes through
into
wakeful watch
schooner
offshore
beating
down to east
dawn breaking
thin greyblue
sky-sea
mid watch
that hoary
horizon
where ghosts
of sea-burial
take a moment
to look around
catching your eye
a swell returning
to itself out
beyond buoy
renaissance
reminiscing
what never
could be grasped
starboard tack
what happens
between launch
and beaching
the dry withered
timbers
one’s life
eight bells
Friday, September 25, 2026
correction unneeded
lobby officer
said it was
10:52 as I took
pen to sign-out page
and it was, I
suspect, I wrote
10:52 in last column,
I didn’t check, just
said thanks
that was it
just breathing through
it’s just pain
nothing else
there it is
just pain
it comes it goes
just pain
nothing else
do you understand
prolambanein (προλαμβάνω)
Talked about sleep paralysis and dreams in prison today. And what, if anything, comes of life after death without our familiar physicality.
Corrections commissioner, in his last week, gives big wave and smile walking by windows to our room.
There’s a proleptic quality of dreams.
Prolepsis
[pro-LEP-sis]
Part of speech: noun
Origin: Ancient Greek, 15th century
1.
The anticipation and answering of possible objections in rhetorical speech.
2.
The representation of a thing as existing before it actually does or did so, as in, “He was a dead man when he entered.”
Examples of prolepsis in a sentence
"Tyrell expected objections, so he tried to include answers to possible questions in a prolepsis of his proposal to the HOA."
"The new biography of Charlie Chaplin begins with his birth, then in a prolepsis, jumps to the height of his fame."
About Prolepsis
This word entered Late Middle English via Latin, from the Greek "prolēpsis," which comes from the word "prolambanein," meaning "anticipate."
“He’s dying!” the Christian Science big guy said to the Catholic big guy stepping in to say hello. The medium size Greek Orthodox shook his head at the unexpected proclamation, and the Muslim big guy, getting ready to head out, stood.
We’d been talking about Yom Kippur, vows, and the reconstructing of reality.
After the tiring walk out, after one of the men trying to extract a promise I wouldn’t die this week and would be back next week, we got some curly fries, peach yogurt and ginger ale, drove to Rockport harbor, and watched the comings and goings there.
And it hits me -- it’s all comings and goings.
Now I sit facing Bald Mountain as contrails and thin clouds ready for the rainy weekend.
God is
not only
good
God is
what good
could be
if God were
capable of
existing here
It’s clear now -- one of my former lives was no doubt lived a prisoner in the Bastille Saint-Antoine fortress, another was lived in Carthusian Grande Chartreuse monastery -- where I dreamt of living in the 21st century, in a sleep paralysis while a desperately disturbed man seeks to rule the world with his comic arrogance and peculiar pomposity.
the hour of our death
Praying through Mary
The bead-fingering old man
Has no idea no comprehension
What prayer is what prayer does
Thursday, September 24, 2026
nevi’im (נביאים אחרונים, nəviʾim aḥaronim)
Go ahead
Tell on me
Gaza is Israel’s
Disgrace
Call me antisemitic
Was Isaiah wrong
Was Jeremiah
No, they saw
Betrayal of Yahweh
Long before
Netanyahu was mis-knit
In mother’s womb
unrecognizable number
wristband says patient is 82
needle in spine
fluid and bone taken
nurse doesn’t return pen
doctor walks out with it
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
final chore
I will go down to the sea
Step into peapod
Row to lighthouse island
Lay up oars
Bobbing and bounce
Depositing my ashes
Out beyond land
Lobster boats steady
Engines one by one
Turning to, heading in
rubber-banded, waving
Gulls measuring luck
looking over wondering
what old man is emptying
Over side into outgoing
Tide until only oars on gunnels
Floppy hat on thwart
Baffin boots on their sides
Painter line loosely hanging
No need to hurry back
Someone will scrape barnacles
Scraps of bone slowly sinking
Depthing quiet unknown
No need of breath
Nor life jacket
Snailing under
Sturdy keel
sun-slant
to port
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
unloquient, uneloquient
Speaking at UN today
Donald Trump unspoke
and nobody heard anything
Worth hearing
simple safety
autumn looks
both ways
before crossing
equinox --
better safe
than run over
by exiting
prior season
χωρίς φαντασία
its just a game
scrimmage, same team
different jerseys
the stadium is full
beer and hotdogs
political merch
do you actually
know what you stand for
the values true
no, I don’t think so
it is a tv game show
full of commercials
before we abandoned God
we wondered -- now we
have no wonder left
we’ve learned to live
χωρίς φαντασία
without imagination
angelus cum una compana
Matins, French Benedictine nuns chant
Lovely immigration of the necessary
Gregorian lift and loft resonance
I have never not resided there
https://app.neumz.com/listen/matutinum-jubilemus-deo-salutari-t-irreg-88190/22-09-2026
Monday, September 21, 2026
as sundown nears
no more vows
no more attempts to manipulate
and control reality
one inmate said
everything happens
for a reason
the attempt to
buttonhook reality
is human folly
let what happens happen
face it, transform it, redeem it --
don’t try to oath or vow it away
ours is to reconstruct reality
to burrow into its depth
to become different people
all vows
attempt to freeze and ossify
we should remain warm and sinewy
majórem caritátem nemo habet,
light
earth continues
to turn
is all
I know
this morning
Matutinum
1. Ætérna Christi múnera,
1. The eternal gifts of Christ the King,
Apostolórum glóriam,
the Apostles' glory, let us sing;
Laudes canéntes débitas,
and all with hearts of gladness raise
Lætis canámus méntibus.
. . .
Atonement
כָּל נִדְרֵי וֶאֱסָרַי וּשְׁבוּעֵי וַחֲרָמֵי וְקוֹנָמֵי וְקִנּוּסֵי וְכִנּוּיֵי, דְּאִנְדַרְנָא וּדְאִשְׁתַּבַּעְנָא, וּדְאַחֲרִימְנָא וּדְאָסַרְנָא עַל נַפְשָׁתָנָא. מִיּוֹם כִּפּוּרִים זֶה עַד יוֹם כִּפּוּרִים הַבָּא עָלֵינוּ לְטוֹבָה. בְּכֻלְּהוֹן אִיחֲרַטְנָא בְהוֹן, כֻּלְּהוֹן יְהוֹן שָׁרָן, שְׁבִיקִין שְׁבִיתִין בְּטֵלִין וּמְבֻטָּלִין, לָא שְׁרִירִין וְלָא קַיָּמִין. נִדְרָנָא לָא נִדְרֵי וֶאֱסָרָנָא לָא אֱסָרֵי וּשְׁבוּעָתָנָא לָא שְׁבוּעוֹת.
The Kol Nidrei in English
All vows, [self-imposed] prohibitions, oaths, consecrations, restrictions, interdictions, or [any other] equivalent expressions of vows, which I may vow, swear, dedicate [for sacred use], or which I may proscribe for myself or for others, from this Yom Kippur until the next Yom Kippur which comes to us for good, [from now] we regret them all; all shall be hereby absolved, remitted, cancelled, declared null and void, not in force or in effect. Let our vows not be considered vows; let our [self-imposed] prohibitions not be considered prohibitions; and let our oaths not be considered oaths.
And may the entire congregation of the children of Israel, as well as the proselyte who dwells among them, be forgiven, for all the people acted unwittingly.
Pardon, I beseech You, the wrongdoing of this people, in keeping with the greatness of Your kindness and as You have forgiven this people from Egypt until now. And there it is stated:
And the Lord said: I have pardoned in accordance with your words.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has granted us life, sustained us and enabled us to reach this occasion. [Cong.] Amen.
. . .
Laudes -- Antiphona
Majórem caritátem nemo habet,
No one has a greater love than this:
ut ánimam suam ponat quis pro amícis suis.
that he lay down his life for his friends.
all I know is
light
earth continues
to turn
Bruch: Kol Nidrei ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙
Mischa Maisky ∙ Paavo Järvi
Sunday, September 20, 2026
no artificial contrivance
Grey sky Sunday morning solid green mountain but for one tree ruddy violet standing sentinel as Ensō slurps his breakfast. I too am muted, content to feel poorly in this cool final edge of summer sitting in cathedral seat across from Bald and down from Ragged. No gods or goddesses here. Just tire-pressed stone and yellow leaf, old firewood and rusting boat trailer.
The Way does not need cultivation;
Just don’t pollute it.
What is pollution?
As long as you have a fluctuating mind,
Creating artificialities and pursuing inclinations,
All is pollution.
If you want to understand the Way directly,
The normal mind is the Way.
What is normal mind?
It has no artificial contrivance,
No right or wrong, no grasping or rejection,
No ordinariness and no sanctity.
--Ancestor Ma (709–788) (He is most famously known for his two teaching statements: "This Mind is Buddha" (ji xin shi fo 即心是佛) and "Ordinary Mind is the Way."[2] )
As a Buddhist I am not in my right mind. As a Buddhist I often fall off the way.
As a Christian I am not aware I have ever (as I recall) seen Christ. As a Christian none of Christ’s brick and morter hostels feels ripe. Only the rare monastic resonance obscurely tucked draws my attention from great distance.
Cars go by. No one knows I'm here. Stillness abides
Bird caws. I long to be nowhere else.
The intrigue of the world is barely, vaguely interesting. How long can you watch a suicide pace and fret pointing and obsessing ambivalence with accusation and irrational confusion at the imbroglionic diffusion of the theatrical public proscenium of untalented actors. Such is the performance before us.
Perhaps the ritual of the Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist, its own rarified esoteric suicide, has stood so long because the rubric movement, words and gestures, have been exactly prescribed and alteration fiercely proscribed to maintain a conforming continuance forestalling opinionated variance. It is a mystery, they say.
When does Becoming become Being?
The Heraclitus/Parmenides argument continues.
Loading old wood into old Waterford wood stove. First fire of season. Just to take chill off before thinking of furnace. It is 52o in shade. We’ve been sitting outside in chill for hours. We talk about man with Parkinson’s approaching impossible stage of care at home -- the stress and difficulty of it. The wife herself taken to hospital after a dizzying incident falling unconscious. Family faces octogenarian parents.
Panta cat on lap.
The Way?
Don’t ask.
One foot in front of another.
Monks chant from France.
Saturday, September 19, 2026
offices monastiques du samedi
sit at new picnic bench up on spinnaker trail
facing down mountain at 95% dry brook
as ghost hikers and mountain bikers pass
in their gossamer attention to peddling
and down stepping trail
dog and I are invisible to them, two stones
on table delight of solitude
it is Saturday, I am not so tired today, climbing
through acorns and bare branches scratching at hat,
Gregorian chant from sext then tierce de France
the whole mountain is monastery cloister
and we, temporary eremites, sitting on wood with stone
Friday, September 18, 2026
i realize my heart
Aaah, the sweet breeze dancing limbs of trees off northeast up Bald Mountain. Ensõ raises up to listen. Sunspots mottle packed gravel drive drying after night rain.
I used to sit in church sanctuaries. Now this dooryard is sanctified nature. Cooling coffee on chair arm. Sense of (friend in Philippines’ word) quiescence, quietness and inactivity. The state has given me three hundred dollars for affordability. The solar electric company has taken three hundred dollars for some cockamamie reason they forgot to charge correctly the last three months. I’m waiting for this administration’s 5000.00 donation from Mr. Trump. I check my mail every day.
When I see
The purity of
The lotus flower,
I realize my heart
Can no longer be stained.
Mokuan (1611-1684)
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/897118
Flowers and trees are the only things to trust. They make no promises. They show up and abide.
School bus heads up toward Hope reminding me that summer packs its valise.
Lovely breeze.
The hurt heart is healed by joy which lackadaisically saunters roadway with walking stick as everyone speeds by going elsewhere. We want to be entertained. Good enough. Tired jewelweed apologizes to bees for sapped energy. Bees alight anyway. For friendship sake.
Our ash tree mulls a date to drop its leaves. It will do so all of a piece over a few days.
Early departure yellow forerunners surround this chair speaking to ground about their summer..
Ensō wanders over to sunny patch of grass by barn door.
I like the dousing of my heart. I cried a few times this morning. I found things beautiful.
curiously moved this friday morning
I have a shadow Facebook address just to keep track of niece and nephew.
Sometimes two things hit just right.
These did.
mνημοσύνη
Something about the fantasticks I’ve never been able to shake.
Quote from "the fantasticks"
“There is a curious paradox that no one can explain. Who understands the secret of the reaping of the grain? Who understands why Spring is born out of Winter’s laboring pain, or why we must all die a bit before we grow again? I do not know the answer; I merely know it’s true. I hurt them for that reason, and myself a little bit too.”
Try To Remember Lyrics
Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.
Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That no one wept except the willow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That dreams were kept beside your pillow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That love was an ember about to billow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.
Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.
Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.
Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.
Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
Although you know the snow will follow.
Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
Without a hurt the heart is hollow.
Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
The fire of September that made us mellow.
Deep in December, our hearts should remember
And follow.
· Featured: Jerry Orbach - El Gallo (original Off-Broadway cast)
· Producer: Lore Noto - stage producer for the original Off-Broadway production; MGM issued the Original Cast Album
· Composer: Harvey Schmidt; Lyricist: Tom Jones
· Release Date: 1960 - Original Cast Album; recording date June 13, 1960
· Genre: Musical theatre - classic show tune with folk-lilt
· Instruments: piano-centered pit with harp coloration
· Label: MGM Records - Original Cast Album
· Mood: reflective, autumnal, quietly affirmative
· Length: 2:48 on the 1960 album
· Track #: 2 - The Fantasticks (Original Cast Album)
· Language: English
· Album: The Fantasticks - Original Off-Broadway Cast
· Music style: intimate pit-band sound, legato phrasing, rubato-friendly ballad pulse
· Poetic meter: anaphoric lines with iambic tilt; seasonal imagery framing
· © Copyrights: © 1960 Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt - composition; © 1960 MGM Records - sound recording
This without me in prison today.
[Made me think of Doyle Lonnegan’s “Ya folla?” in “The Sting.
And the friendship portrayed between Redford and Newman]
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