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TWO SEASONS (CINQUAIN)
It came without warning and much to our surpise settled in for a long visit — Summer Winter’s slow departure leaves us frozen in rage at Spring’s reluctance to appear — again
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CORSO
When my back was turned, Corso slipped away somewhere in Wisconsin silently, without protest carried off by Charon across a gasoline river. There was no bomb to announce his departure, no Queens orphanage stopped frozen in a silent moment. In the small park at the north end of Salt Lake City no one lifted a…
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FROM BEYOND
My grandmother speaks to me from time to time, in a voice that sounds remarkably like my own, but the dead borrow voices, it is so much easier than exercising their own, and there is so little need for words once they leave. She hasn’t changed all that much, still opinionated, still ready to have…
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ISAN’S TIME 鐵笛倒吹 十六
A cold day — how many other winters can you remember, how many future winters can your mind grasp? Can you hold yesterday in the palm of your hand can you wrap tomorrow around your thumb? Between the palms in gassho lies all life and being. A reflection on case 10 of the Iron Flute.
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A QUESTION, AN ANSWER
What is there in a yawn that has time inexorably slow, flattening notes by some unknown but ever constant fraction of a tone, so that it lingers painfully before proceeding? A moment locked in place, frozen like Schrodinger’s cat before observation.
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TWINKLE, TWINKLE LITTLE STAR
He says what he wants most is to own a star, outright, no sharing. She says that he already does, at least a part of one, and he should be happy with that. He laughs at her, and reminds her that stars are huge, and even a part of one would light the room and…
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THE WORLD HONORED ONE ASCENDS
The student may comment, “Hillel was asked to sum up all of the teaching while standing on one foot and did so.” If this student asks the teacher to provide the essential nature of Dharma in one sitting, what choice does the teacher have but to rise and leave the room. The teacher may comment,…
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ERATO’S NIGHTMARE
That one summer I worked in the plant I could hear them whisper in the break room, with its always empty Coke machine. They’d get real quiet when I came in some would nod a hello and quickly leave. At first I thought it was because I was only there for the summer, but once,…
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AWAITING THE WAVES
“Describe yourself,” she said “that I might capture you if only for this moment a footprint left once you have departed this place and time.” I am, I should think, biologically plausible though straining the bounds of reason once and again. I tend to philosophic androgyny hovering on the fulcrum of paradox. I am the…
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DOGO’S GREATEST DEPTH 鐵笛倒吹 六十六
If you walk into the room and many are meditating, how will you know which is the teacher, which the students? If one sits on a higher platform will you assume him teacher and ask the depth of his Zen? If he comes down to you and says he has no depth to offer do…
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an old writer and his words 