books

January 21, 2023

MY RABBI (PART 2)

I tell him I am thinking of becoming
a rabbi, someone just like him,
a man who saw so many through
all manner of crises, joyous events.

He sits back in his unsteady chair,
one he refuses to replace, this one
finally broken in, he says with that
gentle smile that melts anger, anxiety.

You would do well at it, I know, he says,
and I will gladly write you a recommendation
but think about this carefully, it is
not the life you might imagine it to be.

But before you decide, he adds,
reaching among a stack of books,
read these, handing me two volumes
that I did not imagine would change my life.

And somewhere, I have my own copies
of Alan Watt’s “Beat Zen, Square Zen and Zen”
and “The Book:On the Taboo Against
Knowing Who You Are?”, and I then knew.

January 20, 2023

MY RABBI (PART 1)

If you ask why I am a Buddhist
I will tell you there are a myriad
of possible reasons, choose one,
or take this one, it fits nicely.

I am in college, pulling my grades
up to mediocre, thoughts of medicine
gone, law only faint on a distant horizon
a master’s degree away.

I visit my childhood rabbi, a man
who has been my guide through much.
I peer into his office, his door removed,
and he bids me to come in and sit.

I do, slowly, carefully negotiating
around stacks of books piled
on every possible flat surface,
the walls covered in bookcases

straining to hold their loads, I
knowing a too loud sound, a jostle
and the avalanche would be
impossible to stop, disastrous.

December 9, 2022

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

My mother surrouned me
with books, “read, read”
she would endlessly say.

And if I had a question,
“Look it up, it’s why we
bought the encyclopedia.”

I became a voracious reader,
skilled at finding answers,
never stopping to think.

Now, years later, I know
why I had to read, why
I had to look things up.

What she never said, but
what she clearly meant was
I can’t be bothered now,

can’t be bothered most
ever, so be self sufficient
so I don’t have to mother.

October 5, 2022

NONATTACHMENT

There was the collectivist period,
those years when I wanted
a copy of every book on Buddhism
I could locate, a full and nearly
complete library, sutras and
philosophical discourses included.

There was the moment when I
realized the absurdity of all that,
the attachment to texts
to enable me to find the ability
to practice non-attachment,
and I gave the books away,
and finally set off on the path
the books only poorly described.

September 22, 2022

DEGENERATION

I feel like I ought to be
living in Texas again
for everything, they say,
is bigger in Texas, and you
don’t argue with a Texan.

So much in my life is bigger now,
a computer monitor that would
pass for a moderate sized TV,
with font so large a single page
fills the screen, and the tablet
the size of, but thank God
not the weight of, a phone book,
(if you are under 30, look it up),
to read books and news since
libraries don’t carry large print books
(look that up too, probably)
at least not books of poetry.

But thanks to modern materials science
the lenses in my glasses don’t
yet look like Mr. Magoo’s (yup,
one more thing to look up,)
at least not yet.

First Published in Half Hour to Kill, August 2022
https://halfhourtokill.com/home/degeneration-by-louis-faber

May 27, 2022

FORWARD

As a child I was quite fond
of staring into the future
for hours on end, when
my parents told me
to get my head out of books
and go outside to play.

I never could see much
in my staring, thought
I was probably myopic
but my parents said I
couldn’t need glasses, they
cost far too much
for someone my age.

I realize now, now that
that future is mostly
my past, that I wouldn’t
have understood anything
I might have seen, had
I ever seen anything at all.

April 20, 2022

CHATTER

The cat tells me that
long after we have gone
to bed for the night she
hears the arguments
of the authors of the books
lining our living room shelves.

The poets, she says, quibble
over rhyme and meter, claim
this one is academic, that
one merely skilled in doggerel.

And don’t, she adds, get her
started on the Buddhist
authors, who argue endlessly
over their solution to this
koan or that one, each
certain of his own wisdom.

So do me a favor, the cat
concludes, and mix them up,
for they will quickly drive
each other to utter silence,
as the short story writers
dominate the conversation.

April 8, 2022

IN MOURNING

I will soon enough be
in mourning for literature
and philosophy for the moment
is approaching when they
will be lost, or I suppose
simply subsumed, swallowed
up in a cloud appearing
momentarily then gone.

The day is rapidly approaching
and if you doubt it
for even a moment, go
to your local library, if
it has not closed, and note
the diminishing number
of books, replaced
by computers, where
everything can be found
while the power is on,
but just try and read there
when a candle is the only light.

February 27, 2022

INSTRUCTIONS TO MY ENGLISH LIT CLASS

First, read the syllabus
and buy the books we will read.
Note that I have carefully selected
works for which there are no Cliff Notes
or their equivalent, so if you were
counting on that consider yourself screwed.

When you write an essay, do not ever,
let me emphasize EVER, begin by saying
in my opinion, for if I wanted
an opinion on a great writer’s work
I would as soon stop and ask
my multigrain bagel what it thought,
although I admit its Everything cousin
did have some amazing insights into Hamlet.

Do not bother plagarizing quotes
from things you find on the internet,
for they will either be wrong or
you will have found them by using
Google or another search engine
and I discovered those when you
were still in diapers. And finally
if you ask for more time to write
a paper, I will give you a strong
recommendation to take my friend’s
Intermediate Composition class,
the one you tried to duck
by taking my class instead.

June 8, 2021

READING LIST

A good friend, who we had
not seen in COVID time, visited
and we smiled when we saw
that she was reading Heidi,
catching up she said on a too
abbreviated childhood, one
sacrificed to circumstance

My grandson, soon enough
ten, says he is reading
Beowulf, though not the Heaney
translation, so there are two
more books on my books
you must read before you die list.

Despite reading regularly,
the list grows ever longer,
and I am beginning to think
that if I must  complete it,
it may be my best shot, my
only real shot at immortality.