4 cups of spring water

1 dozen walnuts

6 pieces of velvet

1 dash of mist

6 guitar strings

17 lines of poetry

1 redwood tree

1 upright piano

2 streets in Paris

3 river stones

Whip vigorously till fluffy.

Pour in a pan.

Bake on low heat for 4 hours.

Remove from oven.

Invite 3 friends.

Walk to the edge of a lake.

Serve warm.

Yesterday afternoon I walked with a friend up
a steep overgrown Appalachian road to a knoll
where a hundred year old cabin overlooked
a ravine which sloped to a creek headed
down valley from the numerous springs
on the hills above. Below the roofline, someone
had recently nailed new boards along the cabin’s side.
Evergreens in the yard curved from the shaping
of wind, absent yesterday while I stood by the porch
in the warm sun. My friend said, “the chimney is
my favorite part, but it's about to fall. I think
at this point only the mud daubers are holding it
all together." The posts under the porch leaned
into the hillside. The roof was rusty. “I’ll bet
this place is beautiful in the springtime,” I said.
“Yes, it is,” she said. We walked back down
the road along an old fence-line. Three crows
sat in the trees. A few dogs barked as
the afternoon sun settled above the western ridge.

Fifty years ago, after returning
from a pilgrimage to the south of France,
a Rinpoche, who lived in small Tibetan
monastery in Northern India, told
his followers he’d flown in a silver tube
to a country where he’d ridden in carts
that roared, and smoked, and honked,
and went five faster than a horse.
He told them he’d talked to people
he couldn’t see by holding a plastic
box to his ear. They believe their master
mad to think he could fly, crazy to think
a cart could go five times faster than
a horse, and more divine because
he could talk to the invisible.