a full moon

National Football League playoffs go on. The hot stove of baseball, fact and conjecture, goes on. Owners of neighborhood grocery stores and flower shops unlock their doors, show up for work. Baristas continue to pour coffee at a hundred thousand coffee shops. I receive a used five-dollar book in the mail from Ebay.

The earliest winter flowers here in San Diego begin to bloom. The gatha line, “Flowers bloom on a withered tree,” speaks to me personally. On walks, if I’m lucky, I see cats sunning in windows.

The fires in Los Angeles keep burning. I sit online in groups of LA folks and sense sorrow I cannot imagine, loss beyond any language for it. Amidst it all, the clear echo of resiliency.

Sunday morning I heard a Zen teacher say this – “You can’t not get mixed up with life.”