-
WITHOUT BEES
In the photograph the two great blue heron’s stare at each other. We are not certain if this is love, or there is something far more ominous impending. Birds have a way of being inscrutable, and herons are often mistaken for cranes, although I cannot imagine a senbazuru of herons. In the photo, their beaks…
-
AND WHAT IS LEFT BEHIND
She calls them around her bedside but they stand back fearful of the withered ghost hovering on the sheets, until one, eldest, touches her extended hand with a finger as if passed through a flame. I will be leaving soon she tells them, if not tomorrow then a day later and I will take the…
-
REALITY RHYMES
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner suffering from a severe narcissistic personality disorder. Old King Cole was a merry old soul and a merry old soul was he, until he died from a combination of cirrhosis of the liver and emphysema. Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet eating her curds and whey, and…
-
FOR THIS MOMENT
The sea is calm today not the petulant child thrashing at the harbor leaving her stone tears in the sands. Perhaps it is the sun stroking her dappled skin or perhaps she is merely listening to the whispers of clouds sliding off into the horizon. We don’t question the sea, that is for Jonahs, and…
-
LEILA
At the left click of the mouse my granddaughter appears barely a week old and with a right-click she is frozen into the hard drive. I remember sitting outside the Buddha Hall of Todai-Ji Temple in the mid-morning August sun the smiling at a baby waiting in her stroller for her mother to bow to…
-
HIERARCHY
The buildings, great towers overlook the city. The hills, torn from the earth, peer down at the towers lights twinkling. The stars, sliding across the dome of night, watch over the hills. The child, for whom all is wonder, grasps the stars in small fingers.
-
THOUGHT HARBOR
I harbored the thought one day becoming a monk, and not only because saffron robes would be well within my usual color choices. I knew it was a pipe dream, I love, too deeply, to disavow, life and I’m sure my past lives wouldn’t take all that long to catch up with me, karma can…
-
KENSHO
She curls in my arm, head on my chest, offers a gentle smile which melts me and I stroke her small shoulder, as Sid the Sloth and Manny the Mammoth, two bodhisattvas, smile back at us from the TV screen. Enlightenment isn’t something you seek, it’s a five-year old who sits next to you on the…
-
BUDDHA NATURE
The infant girl smiles with infinite knowledge, present wholly in this moment, knowing no other, her eyes speaking with the wisdom of all who have gone before her. In those eyes your heart hears stories of universes waiting to born, collapsing inward, naked singularities, and compassion. She doesn’t offer to teach you, but you cannot…
-
ZEN
He has just turned two. He sits on my lap one hand clapping mine, for each of us a moment of Zen in ways no one can understand, since neither he nor I do. His laugh promises something, a future of moments like this, and yet never the same. “It is our river,” his smile…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
an old writer and his words 