Unending roads,
Whose twists and turns,
Left and rights,
Veiled in obscurity…

Tick-tock…

Tick-tock…

Time is up,
Spurn reason and embrace paranoia.

The choice is yours…
What will it be?

A cicada shell;
it sang itself
    utterly away.

Autumn moonlight--
  a worm digs silently
    into the chestnut.

A monk sips morning tea,
it's quiet,
    the chrysanthemum's flowering.

Paula is digging and shaping the loam of a salvia,
     Scarlet Chinese talker of summer.
Two petals of crabapple blossom blow fallen in Paula's
          hair,
     And fluff of white from a cottonwood.

Narrow path sunless temple locust tree
Deep dark much green moss
Should gate except meet sweep
In case have hill monk come


A narrow, sunless path to the temple tree,
Deep and dark; abundant green moss.
Wait by the gate when finished sweeping the yard,
In case a monk should come down from the hill.

Perched up for what could have been a century              
A living statue, innate onlooker, weathered survivor
Now dying and giving in to the gentle pull of Earth
Bathing in broken sunlight, we ate dinner,
looking on through the kitchen window
Watched you transform and grow downward
Watched you lose limb, then limb again
Looking out the dinning room window every night
In the wind, we watched it sway as it hung from you
Like an aging man, a creased face and graying hair
I stood at dusk, in the pasture
I admired your bending stance against the backdrop of a descending sun
It too shall have the same fate
And so shall I