Burial

                Burial

Shrouded in sand draped

In a million lucent stars

Flight as ascent

At the closest beat of the heart

Did they know feathers

In the eyes’  mind

At the burst of the universe

At the closest beat of the heart

So grace does bestow a peace

Through sea’s sound lament

With tides sure to rise

At the furthest beat of the heart

Leap! In the imagination!

Leap! In black the granular light!

                Exoskeletal

                Silica Galatic

                Inquiry Into Seeing

                Original Self

                True North

                Your needle swings magnetic. 

                Was it your will to follow the 

                Seashore, to navigate the 

                Lace of bays. 

                An old knowing, a young 

                Thing. And of the moon 

                Made lunatic or game. 

                Does dark always bear sleep 

                Carry you wingless 

                Now a child of wind

                Whim, say fate.

                Was gravity so strong she 

                Descended into grief. 

                Where the luxury of grief of

                Living as gravity herself defies 

                Further flight and demands 

                An instant end.

                A final swerve to true north.

Oregon Coast Dunes:  Images & poems DB, August 2026

The Baked Goods

Language, I love it, but it is of the air

and we are of the earth. 

—Ada Limón 

The day after the County Fair closed, strolling through the fairgrounds. A side-trip on this mystery called Life, to the eerily vacant exhibit hall. This way-seeking fellow arrives to the tables array, the Baked Goods display.  

Discovering the absolute presence of the individual baked good, each hand-crafted with memory and care.  Conveyed to the Fair, carried by hand, by the desire to show, to share. Beyond food items:  a deep nostalgia, a love, a gift, a letting loss. The warmth of the kitchen, the oven, a soft aroma upon delivery continuing to infuse senses.

The judges taste and consider, view texture, appearance, in devotion to the awarding of ribbons.  As memory and desire float among the samplings.

Now the day, after after a week in the hall, baked goods desiccated, some slightly molding, to tossed in a bin. The weight of presentation.  As these photos become evidence, fossilized, endless seasons of baking will continue as long as there are humans at the hearth.

CODA

The supervisor of the Baked Goods area, the sole person present this morning, spoke of her memories of growing up in the rural town of Drain when the summer fair was a highlight of the year. 

So, to witness and serve this cycle of a life.

 

NO is Not the Opposite of Anything

No one dead will ever
read these words,
and those alive now
will sweep them from the streets.
The writing of our time most
likely to survive is graffiti.
It survives war.

                            —Chase Twichell

 

Then a question arose in me:
What language does the mind
speak before thinking, before
thinking gives birth to words?
I tried to write without embellishment,
to tell no lies while keeping death in mind.
                        —Chase Twichell 

There is no number, no end, no barrier, no beyond to this empty fullness of where and what we are and have always been:each thing is marvelously singular (no number); this seeing through the barrier of the self is ceaseless (no end); this mysterious self is actually transparent to all that is (no barrier); and being here, awake in this mortal body, is complete (no beyond).
—Susan Murphy

NOTES
—“No is not the opposite of anything” stated by Melissa Myōzen Blacker, Rōshi, a Sōtō Zen priest with the Boundless Way Zen Temple, discussing the Mu koan.
—Top:  Chase Twichell from her poem Skeleton in Dog Language (2005)
—Above:  Chase Twichell from her poem How Zen Ruins Poets in Horses Where Answers Should Have Been.

—Susan Murphy, A Fire Runs Through All Things: Zen koans for facing the climate crisis. Teachings on Earth, Mind & Not Knowing (2023)
—Below:  Julia Hartwig-Międzyrzecka (1921-2017), In Praise of the Unfinished: Selected Poems (trans from Polish, 2008)
—Photos: Words Appearing in Public, Eugene, Oregon, Jan-July 2026, Douglas Beauchamp. 

CODA
It Is Also This

Art casts a spell summoning life
so it can continue
but its space extends to the invisible
It is also an intelligence reconciling
discordant elements and similarities
It is brave
because it seeks immortality
by being—just like everything else—mortal
                    —Julia Hartwig-Międzyrzecka

Outrageous Grace

There is a kind of out-of-sight dreaming

that never stops. Light for other eyes.

A zone where creeping thoughts learn to walk.

Faces and forms regrouped.

We're moving on a street, among people

in blazing sun.

But just as many—maybe more—

we don't see

are in dark buildings,

high on both sides.

Sometimes one of them comes to the window

and glances down on us.

—Tomas Tranströmer, from the poem Dream Seminar (trans Swedish)

 

Downtown, the people scene, the seen and the unseen.