chadō

chadō

‘The way of tea’, the Japanese art of tea ceremony. In chadō tea is not steeped in a pot. The boiling water is ladled directly into the bowl and whisked together with the powdered green tea.

With acknowledgements for use of this image to: https://visitjapan2019.com/venues/interest/shizuoka/shizuoka-tea/ 

if you
came just
as the water
came to the
boil in the
iron kettle
on the brazier,
the flame
woven like silks
of Nara* over
the burning
charcoal,
the sparks
a billowing
dance of
snowflakes
in a going
sun,
if you leaned
forward to ladle
the spring water
glistening with
air within into

plaka

 

plaka*

on    the street   the breadth   of greeting
the paving stones
are  coarse marble   like that
light    blinding the sea’s edge    discarding
islands     are worked and lived into place.
the    joints natural    as the     run and return
of thought / that the
rains    thread silver into the
clefts    the summers chip    light between
them.

you stand    a chair    outside / the legs
stagger a sound / small
held together    enough
to    rest your    self    a short-lived frame
through which
the days enter.

bell tower

bell tower

the stairs  high as any fall
i’ve known
still we pulled ourselves up
seeing each other
the view held nothing for us
only more grey from which
we’d climbed.
the bell cast hung over
the day  the shape
of tempered quiet we’d
hammered our own dreams into
cut word within.
we couldn’t lift the wood
struck it with our gloved hands