An Old Man’s Tale
My life has been like climbing a mountain.
A lot of work, a lot of learning.
Learning the right way to belay a line
and the wrong way to drive a piton.
There have been avalanches and rock slides.
Boulders a hundred times my size.
We have lost members of the party.
And now here I emerge from the tree line, almost there.
One long wistful look down that slope.
For I must turn my eyes upward and concentrate on this last leg.
The summit awaits.
Paz
A Poet’s Tale
I heard music and
thought of you and clouds
and God and the universe
and babies and dogs and
old men.
I saw the iridescent starling
on the verdant lawn
under the cerulean sky
and Payne’s gray clouds
and also on the bare
winter cherry
awaiting spring
and grubs.
I tasted the hot coffee smelling of campfire
and the liquored kisses,
milk fresh from the cow and
cheese fresh from Vermont
and syrup fresh from our own trees.
I watched a thousand sunsets
from the same window
and marveled at the
October dawn from my
chair in the kitchen,
and sat to write about
all of these things.
Oh, look. It’s snowing.
The Warrior’s Tale
A ninja, I moved
stealthily through my world.
sometimes in fluid and undetectable ways,
sometimes stock still,
camouflaged.
Hidden.
Now the
rhetoric of the politic
has passed.
Here the
clear campaign
rises before me,
and I don armor.
Shield raised and sword held high,
I am samurai.
Slainte,
Paz
Armchair Zen 