postcard from the seashore
Dear Human,
in my round body this hard and heavy world rests carefree and content
Yours truly,
Rock
Tag: poetry
Commercial Break
In place of my usual weekly essayette and/or poem, I’m sharing links to a short radio interview and a magazine article on my work which were produced last year. I hope you will take a moment to experience (i.e. hear and see) my work through these other media channels. As always, thank you so much for reading!
In September 2021, I was invited to join “Bridges Across World Communities”, a local radio program sponsored by the Nishinomiya City International Association (NIA). Hosts Floyd and Thelma interviewed me about my first self-published book of poetry and photography: Twelve Moons & The Sea ~ A Journey Home. The interview was conducted in two short segments which can be accessed with the links below:
Part One (from 5:10)
Part Two (from 5:07)
In October 2021, my work was also featured in Tokyo Weekender’s series TW Creatives, which highlights “various works by Japan-based writers, photographers, videographers, illustrators and other creatives“. Please check it out below:
Links to the above radio interview and magazine article can also be found on my new media page on this website:
beginnings
Some poems seem to take on a life of their own. Apropos perhaps, I do not remember when I wrote the first version of the poem below—only that it was a very long time ago—and it seems also to have no end. I’ve come back to it multiple times, tweaked it here and there, but its completion is forever illusive. Like snake tracks in the desert sand, it evades capture. This poem of beginnings and endings, has neither. Maybe we are all like that, without beginning nor ending, in reality… and our essential self too, like snake tracks in the desert sand, evades capture.
beginnings
In every beginning
there is death
and in all death, there is rebirth.
Do you remember your beginning?
We are a continuum, of
eternity & nothingness
polarity & unity
a quivering consciousness sometimes shackled
by words.
Freezing bits of existence
into b/l_o.c+k-s tumbling
from our mouths
we trip
in the rubble of our own expression.
Until weary, perhaps
with splintered and twisted feet
we lay down, seeking
nothing
other than earth
and sky.
Here we find, an infinite desert.
Here our hollowed self, shimmers
alive
reawakened
in an instant of eternity.
A single drop of rain falls
into the soul
and the membrane of each cell shivers
shedding itself
into currents of grace
flowing and
flowing like blood into
crevices
and over rocks and into ancient
ravines
returning devoutly
inevitably
to firelit waves of a primordial sea.
Do you remember
your beginning?
A Simple Story
This is a simple story.
The other day I went for a walk and found a small park with a bench and a very large tree. Sitting there, I took in the surrounding quiet, light, and pleasure of watching a mother and child playing together. And even still, the light weight of an infinite digital universe in my palm took me out of the quiet, the light, and the simple joy. With so much to “do”—I disappeared altogether from the park.
Then, for some reason, some beckoning from a mysterious somewhere calls and… I looked up. Spinning through the air through the blue through the soft light there, came these two leaves together on one stem. In the park once again. Awake again. My heart beating, once again. I promise to put my phone away and walk over to where the spinning lovers landed. My journey is not solitary. And I collect this little treasure and thank the voices from beyond and my heart is filled again, with quiet with light and with joy.
two leaves on one stem suddenly across the sky spin love into flight
The Ocean
One of the loveliest things about strolling along the beach is finding seashells. Some of them call out to you, with a little coy glimmer or a slight beckoning and irresistible sigh. “Come, take me home with you, let me adorn your shelves, let me remind you of the sea and its beauty every day” they whisper. And others even more beguiling, “For you, I have made the arduous journey and stranded myself upon this shore! Do not leave here without me.” Alas, what heartless soul does not succumb to the romance of seashells?
Like seashells, poems too find their own ways of surfacing into our meandering minds and our wanderlust—just at the very precise moment we need them. Our wayfaring souls are steered by poetry and seashells alike.
Here is a poem by Khalil Gribran which articulates an inevitable journey to the sea, to the ocean of becoming. And on the eve of 2022, and of all the unknown ahead, I pause on its sandy shore and watch the waves rolling in. Shall I walk back now to the familiar comforts of my faraway motherland, or shall I plunge into this ocean, this unknowable depth with a million and one shades of blue—unabashed, without reserve, naked, and wholeheartedly?
Fear It is said that before entering the sea a river trembles with fear. She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding road crossing forests and villages. And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever. But there is no other way. The river can not go back. Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence. The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean. Khalil Gibran
again
~a short meditation on flight, five~
and into this house of the sun
i am carried again
swept up
held, and
laid down in its luster
soft center churning gold
into golden
rims
burning and brimming full
fuller and fuller, thicker and
rounder, rounder rims
we
p
l
u
n
g
e
and we
d
i
v
e
and then we f l y f o r f o r e v e r
in all
and in every
d i r e c t i o n
again
Querencia
onto my screen "querencia" saunters announcing herself fresh like an ocean breeze and like the lightest foam on this sea's shore she is the trending word she is trailing her footsteps all across the social media sand dunes "querencia querencia querencia" i repeat after the computer-generated voice google translated "querencia"—its quick to softness melts in my mouth i'm caught i like it and i succumb like butter to the sun "Gotcha!" she laughs with a wry wink and a wave and saunters again, this time off towards some shimmering coral-pink horizon beyond my screen querencia~querencia~querencia* my love my heart untamed roses and my diamond in the sky *a Spanish metaphysical concept on the place from which one's strength and/or inspiration is drawn; where one feels most authentic, safe, and at home
into the light
t um blin g at the edge of the world i fall down tumbling with the awkward grace of a dancer unhinged unfettered unbridled and entirely undone free free now and cascading freely down and over the edge and at last tumbling tumbling down t um blin g down and and into the l i g h t
the poet’s day off
today i take refuge in the mundane the ordinary and prosaic laundry beckons like an old friend or, a cup of hot black coffee on my desk for lunch, i eat goat cheese with sliced cucumber sprinkled with lots of black pepper and a dash of cayenne a drizzle of honey dried parsley flakes and chopped walnuts... between two slices of whole wheat bread, with a glass of tap water really you should try it today, every single one of my electronic gadgets work without mishap while crystals and sage bundles gather the dust the vacuum cleaner is no dance partner today, nor hungry ghost and the gods are silent and clocks steer clear of double digit numbers flowers are just pretty flowers, and rocks are, well.... rocks i welcome the air, slightly matte and thick like a fleece blanket somehow comforting in its stillness today i take a shower, trim my nails—no polish—rub cream into my face and go to bed before the stroke of midnight, and do not dream for just today i am twinkled out, and grounded. tomorrow, i shall fly again
field of dreams
Life is a field of dreams growing with the wind and weather patterns of thoughts feelings and voices Voices from the soil of memory past loves and sorrows past joys and triumphs and remorse They take root and grow into our field of dreams And whether asleep or awake we all walk our field of dreams on pathways of hope or of despair to horizons unknown But surely on a pathway of love love itself is the horizon and the infinitely wild beautiful blue sky above
