The invitation from our esteemed host
Requested that his guests would bring along
Some ceremonious way to make a toast
For this occasion with a poem or song.

Hence, without a moment’s hesitation
I consulted Google for a clue.
It spewed forth many hits for contemplation
Of the old year’s end and welcome of the new.

I found verse by Shakespeare, Ralegh, Clare
Robert Burns and Frost and Service too
All grieving for the loss time makes us bear
All hopeful for what next it brings in view.

There’s little more to say than what they said,
So lets just try to love life, till we’re dead.

Took my listening walk with the dog up Poly Mountain this morning. The clock moved back on Saturday. The dawn was fresh and brilliant after last night’s rain. On the way down, near the gate, I was arrested by a burgeoning yellow acacia at the side of the path. Two peeps emerged from inside its opaque crown. The new leaves glowed green as the light swelled. Pearl-shaped leftover raindrops glittered like diamonds in the sun. The slow strains of cello and viola in Beethoven’s Hymn of Recovery slowly crescendoed in my earbuds and burst into a high-pitched dance of the first violin. A tiny bird flew out of the canopy, remained suspended and vibrating, then fired a blast of colors from its emerald head and ruby throat.

When I saw white butterflies in the sun
Flutter among my broccolis,
Like a tragic king at the oracle
I knew what was in store.

Now dark mornings find me
On aching knees
With headlamp pointed down
Searching undersides of ragged leaves
Stems fouled with droppings
Tangles of shredded buds.

I spot the velvety worms
The color of what they’ve eaten,
The shape of where they hide.

I lift them tenderly
With forefinger and thumb
To squeeze out their guts.

Back to black coffee
Not lighting a cigarette
But remembering

* * *

New zazen cushion
Arrived by yesterday’s mail
Right knee still hurts

* * *

Thick snow falling down
Mixed with cherry blossom petals
Lit up from below

“You get what you pay for,”
My momma used to say.
But shopping for bargains
Was how she spent her day.

This flattened trail gives softly to my tread
As cedar trunks suck water from below
Two hundred feet high where new shoots are spread
And, pointing to the sun, tough top tips grow.

With winks of shade and light the slovenly bush
From off the beaten path calls me to turn
I stomp on brittle twigs and logs of mush
I stroke slow swaying fronds of unfurled fern.

Up and down the dance of feed and kill
To music of the robin, jay and gnat
Warble, squawk and buzz. Then all is still
Till shattered by woodpeckers’ rattatat.

Summoned to return, as from a dream
My offering left: a sparkling golden stream.

Outside the night window a mockingbird renders her love
To the moon-soaked restaurant buzz and the creek
Indoors, a succession of bards warble syllables loosed
From the wellspring under the stairs.

Pumping thighs drive the flow
Fondling fingers swell the sound.

And as an arrow that upon the mark
Strikes ere the bowstring quiet hath become,
So did we speed into the second realm.

My Lady there so joyful I beheld,
As into the brightness of that heaven she entered,
More luminous thereat the planet grew

Dante, Paradiso Canto 5