that all things are empty
doesn’t mean that any thing
is other than it is

a thing is what it is
by virtue of how
we interact with it

drink up!

while everything is evanescent, gold and glory pass more, much more, quickly than wisdom

Happy emotions come and go, so do unhappy ones. These are, in themselves, not signs of suffering, potential or actual. They are signs of living.

weeds in the garden flourish
unconcerned
their days are numbered

what good fortune:
stopping,
the smell of roses

true enough: we cannot be happy in the future,
we can only be happy now, in the present

the same is true for unhappy

go figure

the experience of free will is neither proof of nor
an explanation for it

when does the past become the present and the present, the future?

mortality appears
when the obituaries
could be yours

the denial of aging is the denial of death

like autumn leaves I am dying,
much more slowly,
no less certainly

we can accept our pain without liking it even though the pain remains until it, as all things, passes

wind-flashed hints of red
from the Chinese pistache –
first notes of fall

only a while
do our lives last,
the ant on the counter . . .
and me

there is nothing certain in this life but the leaving of it