• BACK IN THE DAY

    My uncle and I would sneak away from the seemingly endless party, no one wanted to attend and couldn’t leave. We go up to my room and turn on the radio. He’d want to look for the Senators game, but they’d left town and no radio could pull in Minneapolis anyway, but despite Killebrew, Arbitron…


  • WAITING FOR TEACHER

    It should come as no surprise, for both Buddhism and Hinduism grew out of the same fertile soil. An older Hindu man said, “do not look for your Guru. When you are ready, your Guru will find you.” I knew the Buddhist equivalent, and its corollary, when the student is ready, the teacher disappears. My…


  • THE GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL 鐵笛倒吹 六十九

    Standing at the window looking down on the street is the passing man enlightened? Call out this question to him. If he looks upward and says yes what do you know of his enlightenment? Looking at a flower is it different than its seed. If you hold a seed in your hand what can you…


  • THAT LOOK

    She stares at the menu, her eyes incandesce brighter than an eight year old’s should be able. And I can eat everything on the menu, she says to herself, her smile broadening, as she thinks and they may enjoy it too, and I can move them one more step in the right direction. She has…


  • DIVING

    He circles carefully constantly adjusting altitude expanding and contracting his orbits in great increments. His each move is calculated that much is obvious. And you watch him with a deep fascination. You are not the only watcher this day, at this time, others peer up as he plunges downward breaking the surface, his head appearing,…


  • OVA

    She says you should not put all of your eggs in one basket. I remind her that I’m not terribly fond of eggs, and only rarely have more than one, and in any event, I keep them in the refrigerator to avoid spoilage. She says, so why is it we have no TV, no phone,…


  • COLORS

    We hunted him as a trophy stag across his fields. We called him red man, color of Ares, gods sacrificed on our altar. His rivers run with his spirit. I am white bereft of color, barren, a glare, a dessert stripped of life. It is I who wears Cain’s mark, plucked from the garden the…


  • BELIEF

    He will tell you he’s agnostic, once he would’ve set atheist, but put to the test, he knows he couldn’t disprove the existence of that which could not be seen. He believes it will, must, get better eventually, he has infinite faith that it will, he says to anyone who will listen, in faith is…


  • LITTLE LESS THAN GODS

    It hardly seems all that long ago when we were immortal, when we measured our days by the number of dares we undertook, each with its own level of stupidity which we took, mistakenly, for courage. We are older now, we would like to think far wiser as well, but the line between truth and…


  • SEPPO’S PUNCTUALITY 鐵笛倒吹 二十六

    You ask me how I know when to begin my sitting so it will be the right time. It is easy to watch the sun and stars for they clearly know. You ask what I do when the sky is black with impenetrable clouds, it is easy to watch the clouds. Water from the stream…