Poetry

The Beginner's Mind

I like to watch Oliver

My cat

Oliver is his given name

But he is known affectionately

By many aliases

Watching him

He strikes me as the Grand Inquisitor

With a mix of Columbo

Rounding out his character

From my vantage point

The world around him

Is a moving picture

Laid out on a big screen

And he is the central figure

In a world always set on play

I watch

As he sits in the window

With focused attention

Watching things

I cannot see

Perhaps he is engaged in Zazen

Deep in concentration

The batter at the plate

Two outs in the 9th

Tie score

The pitch about to be launched

Suddenly

I notice a bee

Tapping on the screen

Ollie is looking through

Knock Knock

I’ve come to

Taunt you with my buzz

Ollie's eyes follow the bee

Unperturbed

Reminding me of the look of a gunfighter

In some old John Wayne western

His eyes follow

His ears perk up, like a radar tower keeping track

And catching the sound

The bee dances as if on stage

Floating on the unseen waves of the breeze

Singing his song

And vanishes

Ending the show

Ollie returns to his meditation

And I am awestruck

For him

The world is constantly refreshed

Was that the first Bee he ever saw?

Is each Bee the first one

He has ever seen?

Though he has seen as many bees

As there are stars

For him

It is  the first time every time

He yawns

Exposing his sharp teeth

And arches his back

He has sat enough for now

He glances at me

Did you enjoy the show?

He recedes in his condo

Lays down

Nap time

May 16, 2026

Tomatoe Pie

To Mozart, music was his natural state

It was always present

I imagine notes rising up

Like flowers on a spring morning

While he ate his breakfast

The sizzling of the bacon (assuming he ate bacon)

A symphony

Thought would be a barrier

A closed door

He thrived in an empty space

And up through the floorboards

There it was

Against the dark sky

Flashes of lightning

I was watching you yesterday

Creating a symphony

Only your fingers were in the dirt

And seeds and plants were your instruments

Playing in the earth

A giant sandbox

A symphony

Our minds are constantly jumping

What is for dinner

What time is my appointment

Did I say the right thing, the wrong thing

A continuous loop

A gate shutting us out from ourselves

But then I watched you

Compose a symphony

And I thought of Mozart

And saw you playing in the dirt

Yes, we will have tomato pie

Straight from the garden

5/25/2026

 Statues

As a graduate student

I ran into Albert Einstein

Sitting on a stone bench

Actually, it was a statue of Albert

Sitting in his rumpled shirt

(May I call you Albert?)

He is holding some papers

And looks to me as if he is waiting

For the pigeons to come by and feed them

He seems like any other old man

Like my grandfather, who would take me

To Eastern Parkway, where we fed the pigeons

Grandpa would sit on a wooden bench

He too wore a rumpled shirt

And carried a newspaper with him

I did not find Albert

Sitting there until

After my grandfather had died

Perhaps when I saw Albert

I was reminded of my childhood

As childhood began to fade into the past

Just the other day

Rufus (my dog) and I

Visited Chief Oshkosh

Actually, it is a statue of the Chief

He stands shirtless, looking out on the Lake

I checked for pigeons, but there were none

I like to visit the Chief Oshkosh

He strikes me as resolute and

I wonder sometimes

What is it about statues?

Or memory or pigeons

A thread tying time together

Rufus and I looked at each other

Shook our heads

And walked on.

5/23/26

 Guide for the Perplexed (Thanks Rambam)

Each Autumn

The trees undress

And by Thanksgiving

They stand naked against the purity of winter

They bear the cold

The snow, the wind

And hibernate for all to see

Waiting confidently

For the longer days to come

And on schedule

Those trees

Begin their methodical ritual

Soon to be decked out

In their greenest finery

A New Season!

Change is brewing

Dressing and undressing

And dressing once again

A new wardrobe arrives

And this year's Spring fashions

Looks precisely like each one that came before

The same yet different

What am I to make of this Paradox?

Transformation to Formation

And back to Transformation

Completed on schedule

I have been a witness to the colorful patchwork

Of Autumn's quilt

Now 70 times

And have seen the

Green finery of spring returning

Like a clock returning to mark the hours day after day

I watch the leaves of my youth

Turn grey, some dropping

But here too the flowering buds of youth return

Even for me

Spring emerges

Like the trees

I have weathered the cold winds

And the stinging snow of winter

Still, the alarm clock rings

When the longer days begin to show themselves

Year after year

And so I turn to the music

Of Dylan, who has been with me

Through it all

I open Huxley’s

“Doors of Perception”

And like the trees

Clothe myself in my finest greenery

June 1 2026

Women in Bright Colored Scrubs

Yesterday

More accurately, to say many yesterdays

Television flickered only with shades of gray

Shadows reflecting our cultural myths

Scratchy with snow flickering across the small screen

The golden age of television

On this screen was presented

A Zeus-like figure

Complete with cowboy hat

And a cigarette dangling

With smoke drifting upward

From the mountaintop

A real man

Sitting atop his horse

Looking strong and indefatigable

Jeremiah Johnson or Robert Redford

A Potemkin village embodied in this single image

Myth-making and seductive

All wrapped in the package

Of a 17-inch television

With rabbit ears for a hat

All myths have their moment to burn brightly

But the cigarette burns backwards, and turns to gray ash

Our fingers turn a discolored brown

Stained and impossible to remove

With time

The Marlboro Man

Infected with the poisonous smoke of

Gray Ash

Lays surrounded  by

Women in bright colored scrubs

In a hospital bed

As Mt. Olympus fades into the gray colored swirls of cigarette smoke

Over time

Those flickering gray images

Transform into 6-second tick-tocs

Of sharply defined men

Finely coifed performing pull-ups

In Blue Jeans

Unlike the Marlboro Man

The builders of Potemkin villages

Are always plotting

They are the “Man Behind the Curtain”

That Dorothy tried to warn us about

 They sit behind their desks

Conjuring up the next chapter

Adapting these seductive images

To fit the modern moment

Indifferent to the fact it will all end

Surrounded by women in bright colored scrubs

The real men of the story.

June 8, 2026

Jazz

It's late in the evening and

The rain beats rhythmically

The sound of a drum keeping time

Like a hypnotist

Counting backwards

The piano of Thelonious Monk

Harmonizing with the rain

As if he wrote the song

Sitting under a picnic shelter

During a thunderstorm

I melt into soft cushions

Of the couch

The background sounds mollify

The racing of my mind

Slowing its pace

Like a yellow caution flag

I begin to drift

As if I were in a rowboat

On a gentle lake

Bobbing back and forth

On a drizzly evening

I hear the gentle movement of the

Piano coming through my phone

Pictures of my thoughts roll

Across the inside of my eyelids

And I gently lie in that netherworld

Neither asleep nor awake

Suddenly

Coltrane interrupts

The thunder of his saxophone

A momentary alarm

It is time for bed

June 12, 2026

To the Cabin

You woke up early

Your hair the color of

Fresh grown strawberries

My beard with complimentary

Red highlights

It was March

Our first winter fading

Day by day

Into our first spring

We packed what little

We had accumulated

And drove to the foot of Mt. Alander

Planning to make

A leisurely climb

Of a few hours

Gliding up its gentle slope

Youth is deceptive

In the best way

Leading you to think of the present moment

Light and airy

As the permanent moment

Walking up the slope, we pause

Collect the treasures on the trail

Trinkets and Keepsakes

Burdens and Responsibilities

Picking up heavy rocks with

Rough and jagged edges

And drinking in the color of the flowers

The softness of the breeze through the trees

And all that links the two

We tripped over branches hidden in the fallen leaves

And were stymied by fast-moving streams

And patches of ice and snow

Our packs grow heavy

As we fill them, step by step

But two are better than one

And we lean against each other

March turns to April, and spring

And step by step, seasons come and go

Like a cyclist changing gears as the road goes up and down

We huddled in the cold

And danced for midsummer

We lifted our accumulated treasures

And carried them

There was dancing and crying

Somewhere on the trail

We merged

Like flour and water

Creating bread

As nourishment

And without knowing it

We light the fire and bake those elements

So, they become one and yet

Remain two at the same time

You woke early this morning

Your hair sparkling with whiteness

That mixes with the strawberry hue

Complimenting my beard

Long since gone white

I can see the cabin at the top

But thankfully, we have a way to go

June 14, 2026