Today while sitting
Try to nourish a little smile
While still attending to your breathing
Smiling breathing

I’m the meditation teacher
And I smile

So many lines
Breaking the surface of the pond
Branches sticking up
Shadow branches going down
Beneath the surface

So many zones of greens
Pale blues slight ripples
Scattering reflections of their own

Mid-scene a branch forks up
Two turtles sunning looking up
As if to watch the heron poised
Gathering its thoughts to speak

A mesmerizing scene
Chance and my camera
Captured

Each day is filled with magic scenes
Our minds aren’t trained to see

i
the wooden walkway
tinted warm with early light
is straight and narrow
it structures space

then ends at boat dock
a stopping point somewhere
the eye can rest

ii
and looking south the wondrous
shades of blue
the dawn-lit woods
mirrored in the magic lake

for someone who grew up near water
this is the quiet part of coming home

iii
and then at dusk
the sister lake the city park
where people who aren’t wealthy
recreate

one of the city’s lungs
a vital chamber of its heart

a place for people from around the world
where cares mellow toward resilience
and everyone shares
almost common ground

this footbridge leads to nowhere
so it seems across the gulley
just winter grass and cactus
low mountain ridges
and low clouds all
in almost black and white

between subdued and somber
open shadows leading
in straight lines

some joys are not bright baubles
a frozen moment
a quiet image

just breathe and sit
and take it in

A horse without a fancy barn
Without stable hands to groom it
A horse perhaps on a modest farm
Or a poor family’s farm in winter

If lucky there’s a blanket some
Straw a tub of water
If lucky a few more horses
Warm bodies like your own

At least you have a place
A field to age in
That is unless you’re carted off
Slaughtered and then canned for food

What happens when a man grows old
Without a place to call his own
Perhaps without a blanket
Living underneath a bridge
Perhaps with others
Or alone

With luck a charity coat or jacket
Warms his back or hers
With luck there is no violence

And even those horses on fancy farms
Those retirement home wealthy
Find bones getting brittle
Brains too often damaged

There too they end up lucky if they feel
They really have a home

No longer frozen but still overcast the lake talks to itself
Converses with the trees lining its banks
The clouds and shadows
Reflecting all

As if to show it understands
Giving back each nuance
Changed by the features
Of its liquid face

Flown over now and then by
Neighbor ducks or geese
Perhaps an eagle

A very quiet winter afternoon

I calm into it
Become the sympathetic ears and eyes
And being

A part of what the water sees

The White Egret has just landed
Poised it strikes a handsome pose
Enchanting calming

Of course it has no concepts
And does not feel enchanted
It sees us when it does
Through its own different eyes
And partially different needs

This is just a picture
Not the living thing

It is a kind of half-way place
A rest-stop on the road
Between this being classified
As bird and labeled as White Egret
And us

A minor homage to the world
Of living beings
A salve or balm to sooth
Our souls or hearts or minds

Whatever’s deepest in us
That feels delight and fear
Promise

And says to another living being
Namaste peace to us all
Salaam Shalom