Bill Gottlieb
My Find
A man calls to me from across the beach, beard like a dangling whitecap, walking stick dinting his old-time cranium. I can’t hear a word he says over the shout and shush of the waves, and amble toward him, my leashed little dog tugging like a riptide. The damp sand is littered with driftwood from last week’s storms; or, in honor of this still-soldiering sir, let’s say decorated—with the random, uprooted roil of lubbery land, the trees time tore. Over a drafted hour—mixed sky silver as a medal, sun winking like a cool hot lover—I meet Tim; I meet many Tims: the vet, the Buddhist, the father, the husband, the transmigrating soul. “I’ve been a Viking, a Civil War soldier, and a Tibetan monk,” he says. And with each declared incarnation the specified life flashes like secret lightning before my widening eyes—fantastically a friend, long-lost, lastingly limbed, has washed onto my world.
the light I sought
this white
agate
About the Author
Bill Gottlieb lives in northern California, near the Mountain of Attention Sanctuary of Adidam, his spiritual community. His haibun and haiku have appeared widely and were recently anthologized in contemporary haibun 20 (2025) and Haiku 21.2 (2025). He’s written 17 non-fiction books on health and healing, which have sold 2 million copies and have been translated into 11 languages.