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, whits 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.

Im 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 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.

perhaps benedict joseph labre

 Great phrase”I’m feeling poorly”

Stay home from prison

Fresh breeze through window

More a hobo

Than a hermit

Kindness of others

If you want 

To be at peace

Want nothing

Easier to find

Lighter to carry

An odd holiness

1748-1783

He was thirty five

On his own

Exile

And 

Rejection

drip, drips, dripping, drops

Because it is a rainy Sunday I look at Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon.

I’m interested in what-is behind the apparent cosmos and the intelligible sense of existence. One word for now:

λόγος , ὁ, verbal noun of λέγω (B), with senses corresponding to λέγω (B) II and III (on the various senses of the word v. Theo Sm.pp.72,73 H., An.Ox.4.327): common in all periods in Prose and Verse, exc. Epic, in which it is found in signf. derived from λέγω (B) 111, cf.infr. VI. 1 a:

7. reason, law exhibited in the world-process, κατὰ λόγον by law, “κόσμῳπάντα καὶ κατὰ λ. ἔχοντα”  Pl.R.500c; κατ τὸν <αὐτὸν αὖ> λ. by the same law, Epich.170.18; “ψυχῆς τὸ πᾶν τόδε διοικούσης κατὰ λ.” Plot.2.3.13; esp. in Stoic Philos., the divine order, “τὸν τοῦ παντὸς λ. ὃνἔνιοι εἱμαρμένην καλοῦσιν”  Zeno Stoic.1.24; τὸ ποιοῦν τὸν ἐν [τῇ ὕλῃ] λ. τὸν θεόν ibid., cf. 42; “ὁ τοῦ κόσμου λ.”  Chrysipp.Stoic.2.264; λόγος, = φύσει νόμος, Stoic.2.169; “κατὰ τὸν κοινὸν θεοῖς καὶ ἀνθρώποις λ.” M.Ant.7.53; “ὁ ὀρθὸς λ. διὰ πάντων ἐρχόμενος”  Chrysipp.Stoic.3.4: so in Plot., “τὴν φύσιν εἶναι λόγον, ὃς ποιεῖ λ. ἄλλον γέννημα αὑτοῦ”  3.8.2. 

b. σπερματικὸς λ. generative principle in organisms, “ὁ θεὸς σπ. λ. τοῦ κόσμου”  Zeno Stoic.1.28: usu. in pl., Stoic. 2.205,314,al.; “γίνεταιτὰ ἐν τῷ παντὶ οὐ κατὰ σπερματικούς, ἀλλὰ κατὰ λ. περιληπτικούς”  Plot.3.1.7, cf.4.4.39: so without “σπερματικός, ὥσπερ τινὲς λ. τῶν μερῶν”  Cleanth.Stoic.1.111; “οἱ λ. τῶν ὅλων” Ph.1.9. 

c. in Neo-Platonic Philos., of regulative and formative forces, derived from the intelligible and operative in the sensible universe, “ὄντωνμειζόνων λ. καὶ θεωρούντων αὑτοὺς ἐγὼ γεγέννημαι”  Plot.3.8.4; “οἱ ἐν σπέρματι λ. πλάττουσι . . τὰ ζῷα οἷον μικρούς τιναςκόσμους”  Id.4.3.10, cf.3.2.16,3.5.7; opp. ὅρος, Id.6.7.4; “ἀφανεῖς λ. τῆς φύσεως”  Procl.in R.1.18 K.; τεχνικοὶ λ. ib.142 K., al.

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2363773&redirect=true

i wanna know

 Hermit monk

Looks at Buddha statue

Sees 

Solitary fool

Looking at cross

Sees

what?

Have you ever

Seen the pain?

My brothers

Sisters

Help us 

Look

For 

You

fine, fin, or phooey

 Heather Cox Richardson today quotes judge J Michael Luttig on a way republicans might attempt to steal the November 2026 election results and refuse to seat Democrat winners.

Scary reading for Sunday morning.

Once I read scripture on this day. Now I read strictures to decency, history, and democracy.

And I wonder . . .

Will assassination and armed civil war become strategies of resistance to the intractable and pernicious single-sighted ambition of maga to finally enthrone the unwell and perverse megalomania of one disturbed man?

I’d prefer it not be so.

Then, again, my interests in the state of “not being” is a tortured investigation.

I do not own firearms or other lethal weapons other than a sturdy hiking stick and llbean folding knife, a water bottle and prayer.

I’ll be fine. 

(Or is that fin?)

What is the opposite of history?

Where does it go when it ends?

What? No ‘Amens?’

nichts besonderes

I suppose

I have

always wanted

to do

nothing --

I suspect

the time

has come --

I have 

nothing

to

speak of

hence

nothing 

is being

done

reception

 it is not

the form

of prayer

that matters

but prayer

in itself

formless

presence

sonorous

Sophia

see this clearly

nothing

interests

me

only 

you

matter

whole

worlds

appear

root squarely set

cut grass on lawn chair

grackle taking wild cherries

branched over black Ridgeline --

whatever love is,

there’s nothing else like this

there is nowhere to go

a muse sings

 I have never seen god

but I have seen speckled 

sunshine on driveway gravel --

perhaps I have seen god