the lunar now

But now let us cross over
and invest this world where
everything is lunar
Photo: Owhiro Bay, New Zealand
Text: Rainer Maria Rilke, 1909

chant

Remember, then forget.
Photo: Pole stump, New Zealand
Text: A chant I once read about

trees and women

I'd paint her hair as a swarm
of butterflies... There are plenty of legends
about women turning into trees, but are there
any about trees turning into women? Is it odd
to say that your lover reminds you of a tree?
Well, she does, it's the way her hair fills
with wind and sweeps out around her head. Very often I expect her to rustle. She doesn't
rustle but her flesh has the moonlit shade
of a silver birch.
Photo: Tree, location forgotten
Text: From Jeanette Winterson's 'Written on the Body', from i.s.

lunch box

Put food here and the earth
will cook it for you.
Photo: A geothermal steamer, Rotorua, New Zealand

red veil

This red veil covered a bride.
Before that, she covered the sofa.
Photo: J's veil, California

be-cause

An effect can not occur before its cause.
Photo: A stream in Rotorua, New Zealand
Text: A quote from a team of physicists, Hong Kong 

belong

When we are really honest
with ourselves, we must admit
that our lives are all
that really belong to us.
Photo: Cave in Xinjiang
Text: Cesar Chavez

no fear

Let our first act this morning

be this resolve: I shall not fear

anyone on earth...

I shall not bear ill-will towards anyone.

I shall not submit to injustice

from anyone.

Photo: Classroom, Laos

Text: Mahatmi Gandhi

quiet bond

I trust in you.
I trust in myself.
Photo: Torrey Pines, California
Text: From Patti Smith's 'Just Kids'

who I am

Tell me what you love
and I'll tell you who you are.
Text: Proverb in Haiti
Photo: Xinjiang

teach your children well, teach your parents well

A cat I know is turning 90 (in human years). Many friends have fed this cat over the years, and we have been reminiscing her childhood and our 'parenthood'.
I am reminded of my two cows, who parent each other. One is the biological mother, just one year older than her son. And I fed them this hay.
Photo: Carterton, New Zealand

rings

Josef Brodsky: Human beings are
put on this earth to create civilization.
Photo: Lamp, California

Owhiro Bay

Once I lived ten minutes from here, where
people and mountains and sea meet.
And one bird.
Photo: Ten minutes from H's house
Owhiro Bay, New Zealand

see, seen, unmatching

Eyes, braids, the openings in the young mouth, the readiness to see and to be seen.
That is what I see now.
And the unmatching rubber bands.
Photo: School picture, Year 4

to reach

A friend of mine begins a holiday.
I wish her, and I wish all of us,
the time and space to reach.
Photo: L in the van she drives, New Zealand

be there again

'You are fed up by words, and I don't blame you. I am nauseated by them sometimes. I am also, to tell the truth, nauseated by ideals and with causes. This sounds like heresy, but I think you will understand what I mean. It is so easy to get engrossed with ideas and slogans and myths, that in the end one is left holding the bag, empty, with no trace of meaning left in it. And then the temptation is to yell louder than ever in order to make meaning be there again by magic...'
Photo: Birch tree, Maine
Text: Thomas Merton

cotton wind

This is where I sleep. Cotton wind
comes through fifteen windows.
Photo: My Tai Hang home, Hong Kong

blue train

Somewhere, I saw these train tracks.
Maybe alongside a dye factory.
I used to live near one, years ago. The little stream would be a different colo(u)r every day. Photo: Location forgotten, I think in USA somewhere
Text: The dye factory was in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong -- it is now closed.

come, welcome

A good friend will be visiting soon.
Welcome.
Photo: Door, Rajasthan, India

stepping into another

I am reading 'Just Kids' by Patti Smith and am transported.
As is she.
Last night, when she was an 'unknown' 21 year old who had not yet played the guitar, Patti went to a concert by The Doors.
She writes, "I observed his every move in a state of cold hyperawareness... I felt, watching Jim Morrison, that I could do that. I can't say why I thought this. I had nothing in my experience to make me think that would ever be possible, yet I harbored that conceit. I felt both kinship and contempt for him. I could feel his self-consciousness as well as his supreme confidence. He exuded a mixture of beauty and self-loathing, and mystic pain..."
Photo: Student shoes, Laos
Text: Excerpt from 'Just Kids', HarperCollins, 2010, page 59
I thank my sister for giving me the book - she knows I wanna be a rock star

I am thinking of East Africa

I am thinking of East Africa. The UN is calling the crisis a "pre-famine". Millions of people are at risk. Malnutrition rates for children are 5 times higher than normal in some areas. Hundreds of thousands of animals have starved to death, and it is livestock that provides much of the income in the region.

Lots of factors: drought, conflict, political divisions, climate change, rising food prices...
Lots of suffering.

So, let us do what we can. Today.
Please, let's stop a famine from happening 
Photo: A gravestone, Rotorua, New Zealand
Text: For information on Oxfam's work: http://www.oxfam.org.hk/en/eastafricacrisis.aspx

what is the colo(u)r?

What is the colo(u)r of love?
Photo: J's wedding dress

corridor

We walked through these Torrey Pines,
believing.
Photo: J and J wedding, Moss Beach, California

tree, trees

This tree lives in Texas, but the other day,
at a mossy beach in California, I also saw trees with beards, swaying.
And just last night, in Hong Kong, a dear friend with a similar grace.
Stand beside a tree, and we also become a tree. 
Photo: In a state park near Houston 

books and birth

Today is my father's 84th birthday, and I see this building as a birthplace. Here, he would meet the person with whom he would begin the wedded part of his life. 
At that time, the site was a library. Now it is a kindergarten.
Photo: Stuttgart, Germany

clouds and confidence

Am flying today. After so many flights,
I still choose the window seat. I choose
the tops of clouds.
In my poem, 'Madeleine, Flying',
I call clouds 'confident countries'.
Photo: Airport, Singapore

grace and space

Gardens.
Places of grace.
And guardians.
Photo: A garden in New Zealand

bright, brighter

Am in San Francisco, warm and bright,
and today, when two friends wed,
we will be warmer, brighter.
Photo: Featherston, New Zealand

breathing

A lung.

Deep and full.

Photo: Our deck, Sebago Lake, Maine

rivers

A friend sees himself as river.
Another sings like one.
Maybe this one.
Photo: Cornish, Maine

one jeweleye

The first of July. One jewel eye.

In Hong Kong, street and summer and voice are full of vision, mission. Full of thousands of minds and bodies, and even more souls.

Thank you. 

Photo: Water lilies, location forgotten

Text: Over 200,000 people attended a rally in Hong Kong to protect and ensure our rights.

They walked from Victoria Park to Central District. I thank them, from Maine, USA.