I have asked the eye of my heart: what is the use of all this worrying?

So don’t waste your time trying to fill your cup with water
When you know that there is nothing in this well but wind.

O Hafiz, in this desert, you have fallen victim to your own illusions.
When was a pilgrim’s thirst ever quenched by a mirage?

translated by Thomas Rain Crowe

once
many many years ago
I sat on the beach
in Santa Monica
with Gordon Anderson
waiting to see the sunrise
we had a bottle of scotch
or maybe bourbon
with us
and waited the whole night
till morning
sometime
in the early hours
as it became light
all around us
and there was no sun
in the sky
we realized the sun
rose in the east
and set in the west
we were on the wrong coast
for what we were expecting
a lesson there
I learned
either you change your expectations
or your coast
a lesson here
I am learning
all over
again

little black dress
she wears
that night
and twirls
around the room
you like
she asks
that twinkle
in her eyes
yes
I say
very much
but more
I like
who wears it
she laughs
and twirls
circles
in the room
circles
in my heart
she twirls

I’m not looking for that pot of gold or the Land of Oz or even that promise of home and the fulfillment of whatever dreams are still floating inside my head and heart, wistfully evoked by Judy Garland and so many other singers over the years in song, no, not looking anymore. Or at least that’s what I thought not so long ago. But the sight of one in the sky on a morning after a long rain, well it does do something to everyone, causing smiles, sighs, that glaze over the eyes when one is transported somewhere other than where one is. And I spent a minute or two staring pensively out the window at that sky, that rainbow stretching across it in a corner of my universe, and I couldn’t help but think I’m not through journeying just yet. The years have crept up on me and slowed…

A spring’s eye of shadow resists even the slightest flow.
Among tree shadow, its lit water adorns warm clear skies.

Spiral of blades, a tiny waterlily’s clenched against dew,
and there at the very tip, in early light, sits a dragonfly.

translated by David Hinton