SLEEPY TIME TEA©

SLEEPY TIME TEA

eyelids guard the doors of perception

the creation and destruction of worlds

where daytime adventures are called real

at night impossibilities become real

adventures of a realm that mostly evaporates

in morning light

each adventure lived to its fullest

ends in the same now

sing praise upon high or stomp your foot

no matter what it's called

ends in the same place

engineering a way out gets nowhere

it's a funny awesome thing

Susan has folded the clean clothes

Tabitha has made her final evening stretch

the universe awaits

a changing of the guard

TAKE IT FROM HERE

a lawn chair

sounds of the neighborhood

an unwritten symphony

gaze settling on a potted geranium

fixes on the shadow of its bloom

including weathered ripples in the pot

subtle shades of adobe

the planter box

shades of the hack berry tree

a curious humming bird

big black bee with impossibly small wings

visiting purple flowers

heading into an everywhere morning

Tabitha is good company

her alerts to hidden dangers

my random thoughts

all slowly subside

remember when the hills were alive

with hippies?

doper friends: our stoned afternoons

were far out

sangha friends: our silent zendos

were just another form

but here

just as before all that began

not as exhilarating as a toke

impermanent as a sutra

just here . . .

WHERE THE BEES GO

International Stuff, Inc.

announces its bankruptcy

ho hum, knew it was coming

and the monarch butterflies are where?

where did the ground water go?

the bees

bears forage suburbia

office tower dwellers hear the elevator chime

in temples, the meditation:

Aum Mane Padme Hum!

Tabitha outside

emits a special sort of muffled meow

a trophy bird in her mouth

which Susan rescues

I get a cardboard box

put in paper towels for a nest

and we house it in the sewing room

next morning as I'm reading

it appears by the bed, looking up at me

I pick it up, squawking

take it to the planter box

where Tabitha never goes

from under the leaves

it peeks out

“OK, if you're still here tomorrow you can stay.”

and I leave to do some gardening

when I return

the bird is gone

QUIET REVOLUTION

here on the west coast – grapes of drought

illegal explosions could start a conflagration

where the future of the Delta is in question

improvised embankments

Independence Day on the fringes

top hats in stately procession

horses on parade, their nostrils flaring

leaving piles to be collected

by my grandfather

an ethereal connection to some other time

our City calender notes the day

where it rests in peace

independent of Britain?

our New World market matters not to them?

an empire of greed knows no limitations

hardly dreaming of such means

at our Declaration

as are now available

at Lockheed Missiles and Space Division

building the Polaris for nuclear submarines

and at Moore Systems

writing manuals for supervisory control

of oil fields

independence was not granted

over forty years ago

but taken

and I celebrate daily now in gardening

NOTHING MUCH

a babbling creek

the water sound

over and again

cars on the Lawrence at night

in a different key

are the street sweeper at first light

random thoughts are earlobes

pierced to a different key

that I cannot hear

vines clinging to a sound wall

clouds that do not accumulate

are rather interesting

having no names

birds of the neighborhood

know this

Tabitha asks me to come outside with her

we gather in the morning

with that big black bee who likes

small purple flowers

usually I light a stick

and sit before the Buddha

what's so different

about a lawn chair?

we all sit together