an old writer and his words

  • ZHAOZHOU’S BUDDHA

    If you go off in searchof enlightenmentyou will never find it.You may seeka hundred teachersand ask each to pointyou along the waybut the wisest oneswill tell youthat you are thereso stop lookingoutside of yourself. A reflection on Case 80 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (True Dharma Eye) 正法眼蔵

    Lou Faber

  • CLUELESS

    As someone who once taught Introductionto Literature at a local college, I was alwaysamazed to learn how little my studentsseemed to know about the great canon of workthat was the foundation of all they read.Some at least recognized that the West Side Storytheir parents had forced them to watch,and worse, to listen to, was based…

    Lou Faber

  • WANDERER

    I was too long an Israelite wandering in a desert searchingfor the promised identity, followingon faith and a belief that allwould eventually be revealed.I created images of you, of whoI thought you might be, hiddenfrom all, just a voice in my dreams.I was an Aaron, the loyal siblingnever questioning why I livedin their always slightly…

    Lou Faber

  • FASCINATION

    They strut across the yard as ifimagining themselves peacocks,trying to attract the eye of anyonewho might glance in their direction.The day is slowly fading, the sunreluctant to depart hoversover the waiting horizon fascinatedby these large birds on stilted legs.The cat, ensconced on the lanaiwanders over to the screenand calls out quietly, invitingconversation, always willing to…

    Lou Faber

  • THE VEIL OF TIME

    I still search for you behind the veilof time; I cannot look away.I wonder what you saw that night,what you felt in that unexpected,unwanted moment you couldn’t escape.I know I am struggling to reach intoa world I do not yet wish to enter,but all I recall are your eyes, notas they were that night but…

    Lou Faber

  • ARTISTIC SENSE

    Perhaps the moon should learnwhat so many artists know,that it is more enticingif the body is not blatantly displayed.Certainly the fully nude bodydraws the eye, but showing less,a hint of flesh, of thigh or breast,leaves the viewer wanting more.But the moon cannot seem to helpherself, always the slow stripteaseuntil she is fully bare and thenembarrassed…

    Lou Faber

  • A PAUSE

    Now just stop and imagineif one event in your youth had gonein a wholly different direction,where would you be today?Follow this alternative universebounded only by imaginationand such amount of logic as you choose,and create the framework of a lifethat never existed until that moment.If you wish, pick another event,and another until you havea cosmos of…

    Lou Faber

  • YAOSHAN’S DISCOURSE

    If you ask a masterto give you the dharmahe may hand you sutras.If you ask him to explainthe meaning of the dharmathe wise master will sitbefore you and say nothing.He has given youthe greatest gift.What will you dowith what youhave been given? Reflection on Case 79 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (True Dharma Eye) 正法眼蔵

    Lou Faber

  • THE RIVER OF SADNESS

    I have written poems about my grandfathersand the lives I was told they led,having met none of them, but I knewI was appropriating their stories, claimingthem as my legacy although all I was doingwas adopting them, as their children hadadopted me, none of the stories truly mine,and I only family by the thinnest of tiesthat…

    Lou Faber

  • FOR A WORD

    Consider for a moment justhow different things might betoday, perhaps only in small ways,if one particular Mary hadnever been sainted, for thenthe asylum in London might wellhave had a different name, notSt. Mary’s of Bethlem for Bethlehem.If that had happened there wouldbe no bedlam in the world, tothe obvious frustration of politicianswho would have to…

    Lou Faber