Tai Chi Bow

This poem is wrong in several ways: It started as a haiku, which is the wrong form for its Chinese subject matter; the poem exploded out of its haiku format; and the bow is not an essential component of all -- maybe even most -- forms of Tai Chi. Still, I think there's something valid remaining.

If you cannot bow
you can never do Tai Chi:
Humble is the dance.
Patient is the dance.
Quiet is the dance.
Watchful is the dance.

January 30 2014

Ways to Fly

There are different ways to fly.
Most common is the conventional launch
from one's livingroom carpet
into the air past the Christmas tree
and towards but over the piano.
The problem with this approach, of course,
is the gradual settling, the loss of lifting power
that lands you eventually on the same rough rug
you left, too soon.
More sustainable is the powerful leap
that sends you vaulting over obstacles
from gravestones to cars
in a headlong rush with you inhabiting the air
much longer than there is any reason to believe you can.
And of course in rare cases there is antigravity,
the machine version with the tunable knob
that is more strictly floating than flying
and which leaves you vulnerable to turning upside down
or flapping helplessly unable to reach the glass walls
of your container.
All of these have virtue and an end;
we regret their disappearance, but we welcome their return
on a night when we do not predict it but greet it
as an unexpected liberation, a freeing of our saddened souls
from the grounding weight of fear that ties us
firmly to the floor.

January 10 2014

Spring Memory

The morning birds are rioting
outside; they're trashing the dawn.
Any minute they may launch a song
straight through the plate glass
window of my sleep
to loot my dreams.

January 2 2014