acrylic and ink on matboard, 16×20 inches
Tag Archives: Steven Schroeder
a promise
Winter falls fast as
the road rises. Slow
sun has been setting
the scene for hours.
Prairie grass bows south
through barbed wire. Yellow
alone does not suffice to
describe it in this light.
It is the north wind lying
cold across the plains in the stems
kneeling, the color of ice deep inside
dry grass long before the road ices.
It is a promise, the real presence
of what is to come. And when I stop
and turn, as everything turns,
the moon, full, is what it is,
what it has been, where it will be, where it has
been from the beginning, pure cold light rising.
assuming (not knowing)
It is the middle of the day on this
busy Hong Kong street. Every collision
is inexplicable. It seems the whole
mass of the people is moving to one
end while every other person stands still.
Temperature rises as pressure rises
as long as the volume of whatever
contains us is constant. From collision
to collision, I am a molecule
in a fluid assuming (not knowing)
the shape of the vessel that contains it,
water making its way down to the sea,
the smallest possible constituent part
lost in thought, the river, still, moving.
walking meditation in osaka garden
a robin trades his bird’s eye
view for a moment
on the ground,
walks beside me
then
enlightened again
takes wing.
an instant
before crabapple blossoms,
we are eye to eye
and my mind flies, no
I between us
then
he leaves me,
feet on the ground,
to find my way
by feeling the stones.
seeing is believing
it’s like yo’ eyesight like yo’ eyes says
a guy walking the other way, and I
know he is not talking to me but I
have not yet disentangled conversation
from the physical proximity of bodies
and I find myself thinking nothing
I know is like your eyes
someone shouts something
I cannot understand from a passing car and I know
it is nothing personal but it pierces my dreaming
and I am still trying to make it out when I pass a guy
in a hazmat suit fishing under the Clarence Darrow
Memorial Bridge while birds I can not identify
occupy high-rise houses made for purple martins
with their voices
a tiny yellow bird pursues
a brown one four times his size that does not think
to turn which gives me one more reason
to wonder what would happen if
still,
it is plain to see there is nothing
like your eyes and no reason
to try to make out what anyone is
saying when everyone is talking
to someone who is not here
you
see what I’m saying?
the bridge fades
Not the solid
of a local truth
globally imposed
you desire.
No ground
to take in some
pitched battle
against forces
of the evil
of your choosing. Rain
you might catch now and then
on your tongue
if you put the umbrella away.
Surprising how sweet
the world tastes falling
on a day so gray
the bridge fades
before it reaches the other side
and you have
nothing to walk on
but water.
zazen
sitting meditation in a river
flowing fast, Buddha still
smiles. they say
cross the river
by feeling the stones,
but on this busy street it is
a matter of minding
the gaps. no way
but between
to dwell a moment on
this cloud of incense, still, sitting
Macao, March 2013
cultivating qi
i learn by negation
how to breathe,
positions made unavoidable
by a city dancing between
qigong in the square
below Starbucks
and traffic that will not stop.
the proper stance is
flowing from there
to here, knowing
when to swerve.
a matter of collisions
a matter of avoiding
collisions — not
knowing, bodies falling.
Shenzhen, March 2013
for now
Φόβος οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ, ἀλλ’ ἡ τελεία ἀγάπη ἔξω βάλλει τὸν φόβον…
1 John 4:18
Squills and daffodils
spill over barricades
of law-abiding flowers
until lawns with signs
that warn they have been
treated sweep them under a rug
and huddle behind iron fences
with locked gates. Mosque
exchanges glances
with the BP station
on the corner, a long
discourse concerning
corporate personhood
contained in the silence
between them. Christ
the King (a madrasa
in another tongue), not
a mile away, listens.
Fences begin to sway
where Muddy Waters lived,
and the sidewalk is a mosaic
of broken glass glittering
in sun. Most cardinals
stick to the score,
but song sparrows have been
jamming since sunrise. Spring
cannot contain itself, and when
a young guy strolls by miles later
on Wabash strumming a guitar,
I suppose less than perfect
love will suffice
for now.
slowly
Macao/Hong Kong/Shenzhen
1
on a road
you think you know
sidewalks go
nowhere.
sudden absences leave us
walking in traffic.
to take our minds
off the narrow margin
between the curb
and every passing car
we imagine ourselves
one of them.
we pass two dogs
lounging near an open gate.
when they rise behind us
in the corner of our eyes
we see one smiling
at the thought of making us
jump before he
barks once on our heels.
dogs grow larger
margins grow smaller
and, unsure of their intentions
as they are of ours,
unwilling now
to struggle for turf,
we turn back at last
before we arrive
at the beach you were sure is
somewhere on this road
later, still walking on earth, you
realize you lost your butterfly
earrings somewhere
on the way.
2
In Central, where people
walk every day without once
putting their feet on the ground, I
wonder if they imagine us walking, lost.
3
On the same day in another city
altogether, we wander slowly through
a long talk on cracks in neo-
liberal cities where artists live.
A friend of friends says
strong German beer
has made her dizzy and I look
like Marx. I imagine
to change the world is a matter
simpler than interpreting it, hope
you are home dreaming butterflies
who do it without thinking
every time they move a wing.