Gary Gach
Portrait or Landscape
To chart the panorama of your
gaze, the rolling contours of your definitive
face, & to scale as well the heights
& grace of the colossal waterfalls of your laughter
feeding fog-cloaked valleys
inland from uncharted seas
so surveying the planes of your portrait by foot
i cross a dry dusty border
in my biography thus far
stalked by the margins of the still blank pages
surrounded by spirits of the living & the dead
this place where I live with its cast of characters
precise as the silhouettes of its rock meanders.
We, the silent witnesses lending human scale.
Words, like dragon's teeth scattered in the soil.
Road
Seeking
The road
Is the road
& its end is
Being
On the road
*
Left home to
Study with the
Master
Came back
Knowing
How he ties his shoelaces
*
Thumbing at onramp
Fingering out haiku with
Hand in backpocket
Trails vanish fast
Others begin in a flash
Random sunsets without postcards
*
Notes of birds
Notes scribbled on a pad
Keeping company
Feet mark the beat
& backpack's pots
Clang the melody
Gary Gach
Gary Gach (1947 — ) was born in Los Angeles and lives in San Francisco. He is author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Buddhism, editor of What Book!? — Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop, and translator from Korean of three books by Ko Un, Flowers of a Moment, Songs for Tomorrow, and Ten Thousand Lives. He hosts Mindfulness Fellowship, and swims in the Bay.