Is it a Simile?

IS IT SIMILE?

A caravan,
ants heavy with crumbs,
descends a leg
of the picnic table
as I tear
another piece of baguette
chew a tiny bit
to tiny bits
breaking polysaccharides
to simpler fragments
stirring taste buds
hint of sweetness

like I imagine
a student enters a forest
of mathematical matrices
meanders around numbers,
symbols and finds
gate of understanding,
the palace of Heisenberg’s
uncertainty principle,
opens.

A cow is a river.
You can not cross it twice
wrote Heraclitus.
A mother and child,
dispossessed or with provisions,
should not be afraid.
Come, cup your hands
have a drink
it may make all the difference.

Tanka

ON THE THRESHOLD OF WRITING A TANKA
Passing by a window on my daily walk
I hear singing, a quilter
Putting together patches of fabric
For soldiers returning from war.

I did not learn everything in kindergarten.
As I grow older, certain things
Are easier to forget, some things
Stay longer like stains of cabernet
On a wedding dress.

When your tongue hesitates
When grammar gets confused
Don’t despair, memory forgives
In ways you can not divine.

Engage your mind in play,
Imagine branches of creation
A persistent pilgrim finds,
How astonishingly beautiful,
Dawn, at the summit of Mt. Fuji.

In time, the words will come back
To the threshold of the newlyweds
And contemplate the quantum
Equation of bliss.

Singing, a quilter
stitches fabrics, like songs
word by word by word
retelling gathered tribal
stories told long ago.

Happy Birthday

I celebrated my 70th birthday 2 days ago hiking a hilly park for more than 2 hours with my whole family.

AS THE SALMON ENTERS THE UPSTREAM CURRENTS(2)

Memory of affection, encounters
Of wonders and gratitude
My grandfather, by primitive route,
They returned

We searched our way in knots
And riddles, chased each other,
Laughing, in widening circles, never
Tiring of play or exhaustion.

My grandfather would take me
To the river, fly-cast my mind inside
A fish, pointed shadows and ripples,
Where to wade and wait.

The allure was not the catch
But how to still the heart
When the line trembled
When the river was silent.

We would wait for the tide
To come to our feet, walking
The text of my future,
Written and erased.

Between roars of the surf
He challenged my thinking,
On the least visited,
What I cared for.

“Blindness is not a sorrow and desire”.
A fisherman once taught a path
through the wilderness
Only a heart could see.

the salmon
in still waters
my grandfather

Orchids

I went to view the orchids during the Orchid Carnival at Fort Mason in San Francisco last Saurday. The orchids were simply exquisite.