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

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

sweet departure

 Summer waves

Backs are turned

Bus rolls out of town

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

https://youtu.be/XGzOozXt4ek?si=mtCbRxNxBAQd_jM1

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.

drops

 Francis had trouble 

with his eyes

Still

He saw what

Needed

To be seen

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

as the world turns

meditating on

impermanence

I forget

where I am

who I am

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.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1MSMN28h8d/

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/189YmVHkzc/

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 

 

https://youtu.be/8uGlL0xafP8?si=XzmdtgbHSgyYXhBK 

 

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]

educateur de niveau inférieur

 A vagrant dream

Delivering first lecture

In long corridor in England

And I have no idea what

I am saying or will say

By end of my misfortune

Everyone has wandered out

Some Oxford dandy invites me

To his noon lecture tomorrow

(Maybe clarifying what I was

attempting to convey) and all are gone

I think of Gebser and wrapping 

Structural accentuations of

Consciousness into a roadmap

Of navigable experience.

In the dream there I am

Completely bewildered

Realizing the drôlet, the

drôle de petit bonhomme

In this absurd caricature

Of  enseignement supérieur

In Louis Quinze corridor

Of malheureux somnolence —

Cat wakens me

And I am, veritably, absurd

cornering

 Ensō comes alongside bed

Rain falls outside window

Night sides everything

cinnamon streusel coffee cakes

an old man in an old blue llbean 

travel blazer with many security zippers

sits in dooryard with empty pockets

broad brimmed white hat with blue trim

pajama pants, ragg socks, white sandal crocs

wood walking stick leaning against black pickup

cloudy overcast slight breeze muted mountain

going nowhere, happily, recumbent, tuna salad

and sharp cheddar, peach mango tropicana,

sounds from off and away, private landing strip 

engines over northeast side of bald mountain

(how the rich rocky fellows prosper) blackbirds

squawking big construction trucks recalling

speed limit at bottom of hill, the tranquility

of not giving a hoot anymore, walking several times

up and down driveway with hiking stick, no longer

wanting anybody telling me numbers, pills, scan results

blood pressure, A1C, blood oxygen saturation, 

lung clarity/congestion, MRI results, how big a needle

will puncture my spine, do I feel safe at home. No one 

asks if I want to die, or what I think death is, or if I care.

In my mind I move dining room table to wohnkũche

get back and forth windowed wood stove for double sided

center fireplace, create front bedroom and middle room den.

I'm sure these hostess cinnamon streusel coffee cakes

are killing me

what is there yet unrecognized

someone religious might always want to consider what is true

what is emerging, what is coming to be, growing aware in us

listening to Katie Couric in conversation with jurist J. Michael Luttig 

about his article in The New Republic seems like a 6th century BC

Prophetic Literature (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel) a speaking forth

what is there yet unrecognized

what is there, not yet aware of, urging to be revealed for our

well being

good

 Maybe

Today

Check

Obituaries

Maybe him

Maybe you

Either one

Realizes Good

earth breathes souls

 There are molecules of silence

This dark room

Listening to nothing

Breathing prayer

other people

 I'm beginning to suspect

there is more to evil than

refusal of good

if there isn't (a) God, then

we are accidents of nature

composing itself

if there is (a) God, then

we are awkward subserviant

petitioners seeking favor --

there is no so-called battle

between good and evil

only cells eating each other

(there's only you and me

and we just disagree)

as songwriter said

if you prefer good, good --

if you prefer evil

go to hell

after incense and flame

 smoke from blown out candle

heads to open window --

morning silence 

gone

 forty percent (1106) victims

of 9/11 were never identified

never recovered, except by absence --

maybe they were saying a prayer

21,906 body parts

(Remembering 9/11: 25 Years Later | Documentary MEGA Episode Special | National Geographic)

eight something o’clock to end

 she leaned out smashed window

waved twice as smoke billowed past her

corner of tower

eighty nine stories from ground

9/15

 Dizzy

Disconnected

This life

Spirals

Comes

Earth

handiwork

Bathroom hinge

wd40 spray

Stops squeeling 

the broken silence

I've never been a fishermen. Maybe once in Prospect Park, Brooklyn as a young teen. It did not appeal. Although, these days of diminishing taste, I do enjoy fish.

The water’s breath mingles with reflected mountains;

Autumn has come to the vast sky.

I enjoy to finding temples hidden deep in the forest,

Regret the broken silence when

My boat moves from the shore.

Sparse reeds are snapping,

Though it isn’t cold yet;

A rainbow’s fragment arches in the setting sun.

Which way now to my little hut?

The fisherman’s songs bring thoughts of home.

 

--Lin Pu (967-1028)  

Lin Bu (967–1028), formerly romanized as Lin Pu and posthumously honored as Lin Hejing, was a celebrated Chinese poet, calligrapher, and recluse during the Northern Song dynasty. [1]

He is universally recognized in Chinese cultural history as the ultimate symbol of the idealized hermit lifestyle. Rather than pursuing wealth or a traditional government career, he chose a life of deep tranquility on Gushan (Solitary Island) by the famous West Lake in Hangzhou. [1, 2, 3]  

Oberlin College and Conservatory +

  I cancel medical appointments. I've lost interest. 

My room is bright with sunshine and cool with September morning, all windows open. 58 degrees.

It no longer seems to matter that I once taught at university, administered treatment centers, owned a bookstore, consulted with alternative high schools, or spent 38 years volunteering teaching and facilitating weekly conversations at a maximum security prison. They were all passing moments and fleeting thoughts. It feels that everyone I worked with has gone beyond. Mostly they have.

Nevertheless, all is well.

It is only the parts that appear to be going poorly. We wait for our president to die. May he have a happy death! It will be happy for most of us. Nothing sinister here. He and I amble awkwardly toward that foregone conclusion.

I watched videos of the 9/11 attack and aftermath. Sobering.

I'm beginning to understand why so many are cutting out coverage of the national and international news. There's nothing to be done about it by ordinary citizens except the pep talk to "Vote!" Any real change requires moral vision and correct priorities -- both of which are buried deep below our surface interests.

I grow more and more reclusive. The cuffs of my pants are rolled. I melt back into the backdrop of theater stage. I have no lines. I am the unapparent ghostly remnant vaguely lingering from a previous production whose dust has not been adequately swept.

If I had the courage, I would say "I love you" to each and all. But I am not courageous. My heart is ambivalent. Full of salience and scorn. Admiring boons and admitting defeat. (Note: salience as -- Survival Mechanism: Allows humans and animals to focus limited cognitive resources on critical data, such as spotting a predator or avoiding danger.)

But you, and you, and you . . .

I like.

Awkwardly.