Trail sign

[haibun]
teethmarks
on the trail sign…
my last sip of tea

Missing mountaintop

From time to time a flash of panic, as if I’ve forgotten something — but I can’t think what.

missing mountaintop
in the pit
of my stomach

I was trying to find another world. It was right here all along.

hunter’s cap
a bell-like sound
from the raven’s throat

You can see farther this time of year because there’s so much less to see.

ridgetop wind
speaking in the voice
of a raven

When I was a Buddha, my radiant body rang like a bell.

a gall wasp’s
empty oak apple
gone to seed

we saw for the first time what a complete absence of nuance would look like. How irresistible it would be.

insomniac eyelids on strike for overtime

Trying to find the words for a rock oak on the mountainside…

holding its children up
to the sun

the cloying scent
of azaleas

trembling in the breeze
of passing trucks

with its commitments
living stump

I lost my sense of smell for just two days. When it came back, the first odor I noticed was soil.