Who Is That Singing? 

At least I can tell who’s playing
the drums.  Each drop of this rain
comes from one river
and longs to begin another.

Before there were words
there was song.  Have you ever noticed
what a good listener God is?
To sing, you must listen for the song. 

My wife says the Philosopher’s Stone
is a pebble she found in a stream as a child.
She ought to know.

We wonder about the beginning of time,
but at any moment we are just
the beginning of ourselves.

As a child I dropped a secret I never knew
wrapped around a stone into a well. 
I have been drinking from that well ever since.

Just Another Dharma

As I wake this morning, what makes me think that this is the same universe I was in the day before?  Is it that seemingly familiar shade of yellow coming from the east through the blinds?  Is it the clock which seems to know what time it is and thus there must be something called time?  Is it my wife’s soft breathing?  I don’t know, but you can’t fool me.  Not this time.  This time the universe really did sprung into being just now and this is the one fresh and fleeting moment of existence.  Just look at that ever-changing shade of light.  I can’t believe it.  In the light there’s a hint of orange-purple I’ve never seen before.  This shade has no name.  Look while you have the chance.  Now.  This is it.  This is forever.  And forever may not last very long.

Blossom

of tears
opens first.
Even throat knows
before lips or tongue,
saying
without sound

Len Anderson is the author of Invented by the Night (2011), Affection for the Unknowable (2003), both from Hummingbird Press, and a chapbook, BEEP: A Version of the History of the Personal Computer Rendered in Free Verse in the Manner of Howl by Allen Ginsberg. He received a nomination for a Pushcart Prize from DMQ Review, is a winner of the Dragonfly Press Poetry Competition and the Mary Lönnberg Smith Poetry Award, and received the 2011 Dragonfly Press Award for Outstanding Literary Achievement. He is a co-founder of Poetry Santa Cruz.