I've been stuck in the middle pages,
Hung up on a cross that I created,
Built out of the bones that I've been breaking.
life's not out to get you,
Despite the things you've been through,
Because what you give is what you get,
And it doesn't matter what you do.

Sometimes things will bend you,
But trust me you'll be fine,
I've been moving mountains that I once had to climb.

Today the rains came, without any warning
I watched droplets forming, pooling on the ground
the trees dissolving into palest fog
into the quiet of this forest, void of birds
traveling off to some secret world
perhaps to some cavernous mountain hollow
with glorious wings, I dream to follow
through the darkened woods, hidden by ferns
through harrowing clouds to be one with birds
with gorgeous feathers, downy warm
among the flickers, pheasant and crow
to be an evening silhouette in the alpenglow
a skylark winging in a painted sky.

Forty-eight floors up, a God’s-eye view

a man practices tai-chi on a tired patch of grass
he is measured, beautiful

families rest under new-green trees
in Yoyogi Park this early spring Sunday

Mt. Fuji rises like a myth, fading
to illusion in the gathering smog.



                                                            A few inches can be an impossible sea

                                                            we sit, silently contemplating discord
                                                            and the meaningless reasons for it

                                                            cherry trees paint the city pink
                                                            while faded petals cyclone at our feet

                                                            tears, fleeting as sakura
                                                            bloom and fall.