A young child
does not ask for meaning,
all things are
as they are
until they are not.
The foolishness of age
causes men to stare
in search of meaning
they will never find.
It is the blind man
who will find the diamond.
A reflection on case 119 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo (True Dharma Eye) Koans
The rain came sideways today, or almost so. The cat decided that if she needed a bath, she’d give it to herself and opted to watch the storm through the sliding glass door to the lanai. When it ended, she ventured back out, checking out the various and sundry chairs, all hers she assumes, and settled for the recliner in the inner corner, as much for dryness as comfort, but clearly offering both. She invited us out to join her, but all of the other seats were damp from the storm. She didn’t see what that was a problem, she had only the one coat, we could change clothes any time we wanted. We decided to watch her through the sliding glass door.
As I was leaving the surgical center
they handed me the sheet
with my post-procedure instructions,
a sign of faith perhaps, that I
was sufficiently out of the sedation
to know what I was given.
I tucked them in my pocket, anxious
to get home, to get coffee
and the food I’d been denied
since midnight the night before
just in case something went wrong
and they had to put me fully under.
I did get relief from my pain
but I tossed and turned in bed
my sleep coming in fits and starts,
for no apparent reason, and when
I read the instructions this morning
I checked off the side effect insomnia
and gave a half check to irritability.
In the older romcom movies
there was often a meetcute
taking place in a laundromat.
I have spent far too many hours
in laundromats when traveling
on extended business trips.
I found one in Santa Cruz
with a coffee shop and figured
it was where romance would bloom.
I spend more than a few hours
watching but while the coffee
was always pouring, an espresso
or cappuccino hissing away,
I never saw a couple form, a date
offered, just a dryer tumbling
hopes and dreams, as they
withered in the heat, awaiting
the lonely basket home.
There are nights
when the song
of a single cricket
can pull you away from sleep.
She says that she has heard
that not all Angels have wings
and neither of them
is sure how you would know
if you met a bodhisattva.
He searches the mail
every day, for a letter
from unknown birth parents
but none of the credit cards
he ought to carry
offers to rebate his dreams.
Each night they lie
back pressed to back
and slip into dreams.
She records hers
in the journal she keeps
with the pen, by the bed.
He struggles to recall his
and places what shards he can
in the burlap sack
of his memory.
First Published in Where Beach Meets Ocean, The Block Island Poetry Project, 2013
The cat is stalking around the house, wary. She gets this way after coming back from the vet. She actually likes the vet, and not only for the treats she gets, and the pawdicure. But she must stalk and be wary so we will be remorseful for having taken her to the vet. And she knows we will be, given enough time and back turning. We are so predictable. She wonders if we were like that with our children when they were young. Probably, but we must have forgotten. So she will go on with our training, for a cat must bend humans to her will. That is an unwritten law of nature.
As he grew ever older he said
he wanted a sudden unanticipated death,
“In my sleep preferably” he added
with an unmeant chuckle.
It would be a good way to go,
I imagine, but it denies those
who will most mourn his passing
the chance to hope for a miracle.
And no matter when it happens,
if it is sudden it will always be too soon,
only the protracted death is timely
for those needing to say goodbye.
You may ask
about the true nature
of Buddha nature,
but who can you ask.
If you should meet
the Buddha
in a coffee shop,
perhaps you should ask
if the Buddha
has dog nature
A reflection on case 115 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo (True Dharma Eye) Koans
It will soon enough be time again,
I am an old clockface on a tower
at which no one but the truly bored
bother to look, tucked in a corner
of a village half empty, its life
moved away to places cooler,
less stormy. So I sit and watch
what life remains around me,
the few children wishing they
could be elsewhere, some parents
wishing they had used birth control.
No one looks, no one really cares
but I have little choice, it is my fate
to mark passages, entrances,
but my hands are growing tired
and at some not far off point
they will stop moving, and I
wonder if anyone will care.
It is strange knowing that your vision
is not what it was, not what you
want it to be, not necessarily yours
in the long run, one eye already
semi-useless for reading and distance.
You adapt, get bigger monitors, a tablet
to read the news, a magnifier
when you need to hold newsprint in hand,
a large screen television (okay, you
wanted that regrdless of your vision).
You realize so many songs you once sung
(badly) will no longer make sense, goodbye
“I Can See for Miles,” and no more Johnny Nash,
“I’m looking through you,” nope, and
“If I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”
U2 will just have to find it for me.
an old writer and his words 