Just Thinking
Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window.
No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held
for awhile. Some dove somewhere.
Been on probation most of my life. And
the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments
count for a lot—peace, you know.
Let the bucket of memory down into the well,
bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one
stirring, no plans. Just being there.
This is what the whole thing is about.
—William Stafford
Ask Me
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
—William Stafford
See a cosmic expression of how the river relates to Hafiz’s life in his poem, A River Understands, in my year-end post Winding up the year with inspiration from Hafiz.
See other poems by William Stafford posted here.
UPDATE (May 1, 2018): A little over seven years since posting this poem, I found a video of him reading it. William Stafford was a guest speaker at the City Club of Portland on July 25, 1986. He spoke about writing and teaching, read some of his poems, and answered questions. The video, listed as You Must Revise Your Life, the title of his new poetry book at the time, was the first book I had ever read of his. It opened up a whole new world of possibilities to me as a writer. He concluded with reading Ask Me. It’s one of my favorite Stafford poems along with The Way It Is, You and Art, When I Met My Muse, Something That Happens Right Now, and others posted on my blog, including the last poem he wrote the day he died, “Are you Mr. William Stafford?”.
Henry Lyman interviewed William Stafford for NPR’s series, Poems to a Listener, later posted on YouTube. Stafford reads several of his poems, including Ask Me. The wonderful discussion that follows this poem is about how Stafford turns “mistakes” into lines of poetry.
I later found him read Ask Me at The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College’s Distinguished Poets Series in 1986.
“The sight occupies the seer, transforms seer into sight.”
—Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Life Magazine, November 1990)
Seeing Is Being
Seeing outside the Self
Forgetting the Inner Light
The Seer becomes the Sight
Transforming Day to Night
Living Night for Day
The Seer can’t find The Way
Mistaking Sight for Seer
Becoming what’s on the Mirror
Forsaking what’s truly Dear
When Self is finally Clear
We Remember How we’re Here
It’s the One Becoming the Three
The Way To See Is To Be
Since Seer Sight and Seeing
Are All Three Ways of Being
And Being Is Being Being Being*
© Ken Chawkin
————————————–
*From a Q & A session:
Course participant: Maharishi, What is Being?
Maharishi: (laughs) Being? Being is Being Being Being.
Then Maharishi and everyone laugh.
I read that poem at a World Peace Assembly in Maharishi University’s Golden Dome in the early 90’s. It was followed by The Enlightened Heart, a poem by Ken Chawkin.
Also relevant: Maharishi describes the nature of inner life: bondage and liberation, and gaining bliss consciousness through Transcendental Meditation.
This Enduring Gift
A Flowering of Fairfield Poetry
76 Poets Who Found Common Ground in One Small Prairie Town
Compiled and selected with introductions by Freddy Niagara Fonseca and a foreword by Donovan. Endorsed by two US Poets Laureate. Paperback and Hardcover versions with 300 poems, 16 chapters and 796 pages. Publisher: 1st World Publishing. Links to TEG‘s Website and Facebook.
Pictured below, Freddy invites Roger Pelizzari to read his poem, The Beginning of Real Time, during the book launch at Revelations Cafe and Bookstore in Fairfield, Iowa, September 24, 2010.
The room was filled with poets and guests that night. I’m sitting in the front row, and was also invited to read a poem. Since we were running out of time, I read the short tanka. Here are my poems, selected from the ones submitted, published in This Enduring Gift: Five Haiku, the tanka, Cold Wet Night, and Poetry—The Art of the Voice, which was later selected as the POEM OF THE DAY: Poetry – The Art of the Voice, by Ken Chawkin.
Cold Wet Night
A Tanka
Rain on the trailer
Beating down its dismal song
Drop, by cold, wet, drop
A monotonous rhythm
Driving home … the loneliness
© Ken Chawkin
Fairfield, Iowa
Dec 20, 2006
Published in This Enduring Gift – A Flowering of Fairfield Poetry, 2010. See my other published poems in that book.
This poem was written in the presence of my muse, Sally Peden (Sali), as I was demonstrating to her how easy it was to write a haiku, which extended to this tanka. It tells the story of what was happening at the time. It was a very blissful process. Nothing depressing or lonely about it. I just selected the words that best conveyed such an image and accompanying mood.
Three years later things would change. On Jan 19, 2010, Sali would have to move into Parkview Care Center because of her dementia. Over 9 years later, I wrote this short, sad, 4-line Teapot Poem. In the 5th Response, I explain how it came to be written. Using the creative process described there brought relief from the grief I was feeling at the time.
— Written and compiled (citing sources) by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.
Five Haiku was published in This Enduring Gift — A Flowering of Fairfield Poetry, 2010. These 5 haiku were selected from 13 Ways to Write Haiku: A Poet’s Dozen, where they were originally published in The Dryland Fish, An Anthology of Contemporary Iowa Poets, 2003. The University of Iowa’s “Iowa Writes” program heard of This Enduring Gift and asked the Fairfield Poets to submit our poems to them. They published Five Haiku on The Daily Palette, January 5, 2011.
Five Haiku
Defined
3 lines, 2 spaces,
17 feet to walk thru;
then, the unending
Translated
(Inspired by Australian artist Gareth Jones-Roberts’ painting
Egrets in Morning Light)
on the edge of space
two egrets in morning light
woken from a dream
The Fall
sudden drop of leaves
a negligée to the floor
trees stand stark naked
Winter Memo
On seeing snowflakes
written on a piece of bark
I copied this down
Forest Flowers
tiny white flowers
a constellation of stars
so low yet so high
© Ken Chawkin
Also see Another Fall Haiku
— Written and compiled (citing sources) by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.
About 20 years ago, my 6 year-old daughter Shara brought home a large leaf. The outer skin had worn off revealing an intricate skeletal structure. It looked like a miniature replica of a tree. That image and theme inspired this poem. A few years later I wrote Pine Cone Trees, which brought about a variation on this theme. In both cases the last lines surprised me with their spiritual revelations.
As Above, So Below
Yatha pinde, tatha Brahmande*
As above
so below
allowing Love
to help things grow
Repeating the pattern
to copy each other
in the daughter
is the Mother
In each snowflake
a glistening star
this whole universe
is what we are
In each leaf
we see a tree
for every branch
a capillary
In each tree
not seen are seeds
and in each seed
is found a tree
So are we
found in Thee
as Thou oh Lord
in each of me
© Ken Chawkin
Fall, 1990, Fairfield, Iowa
*As is the atom, so is the universe.
As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm.
From the Vedas and Upanishads.
*This Vedic expression, Yatha pinde, tatha Brahmande, is explained by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in this video: “As is the cosmic life, so is the individual life,” and “The individual is cosmic.”
I originally read this poem to conclude the February 26, 2020 broadcast of MIU Radio KHOE’s Let Your Heart Sing, #62, “A New Variety Show.” You can listen to that segment on YouTube starting at 29:29–30:30.
I posted Five Haiku, published in THIS ENDURING GIFT – A Flowering of Fairfield Poetry, 2010. They were selected by editor Freddy Fonseca from: 13 Ways to Write Haiku: A Poet’s Dozen, originally published in The Dryland Fish, An Anthology of Contemporary Iowa Poets, 2003, edited by Matthew MacLeod. The 5 haiku already selected were: Defined, Translated, The Fall, Winter Memo, and Forest Flowers, numbers I, IV, VII, XI, and VIII, respectively. Rather than present the remaining 8 haiku, here is the complete collection in their original order.
13 Ways to Write Haiku: A Poet’s Dozen
I
Defined
3 lines, 2 spaces,
17 feet to walk thru;
then, the unending
II
Discovered
a poem unfolds
as words take their place in line
this one’s a haiku
III
Transformed
Caterpillars spin
increments of commitment;
Butterflies fly free!
IV
Translated
(Inspired by Gareth Jones–Roberts’ painting “Egrets in Morning Light”)
on the edge of space
two egrets in morning light
woken from a dream
V
Galiano Island
West Coast Island Time
Nothing Moves, Nothing Changes;
Roosters Crow At Noon!
VI
Cliffhouse Deck at Dusk
Inspired during a visit to Galiano Island
Tiny bells call me
Arbutus blossoms falling
Sounding the Silence
VII
The Fall
sudden drop of leaves
a negligée to the floor
trees stand stark naked
VIII
Forest Flowers
tiny white flowers
a constellation of stars
so low yet so high
IX
Be Spring
Brown Branch Bursting Buds
Beneath Benevolent Beams
Boughs Bearing Beauty
X
I Wonder
Do trees have a say
When to drop anchors away
As ripe acorns fall?
XI
Winter Memo
On seeing snowflakes
written on a piece of bark
I copied this down
XII
Foggy Perception
a yellow raincoat
from out of a thick white fog
appears to be seen
XIII
Concrete Impression
cement truck droppings
on the road solidified
········like elephant dung
© Ken Chawkin
Also see Another Fall Haiku
— Written and compiled (citing sources) by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.
The Uncarved Blog 