We want to cry out,
but we have no words.
We want to scream
but all we give is silence.
We want to curse the invader
but cannot be heard
over the tanks, bombs
and rockets.
We want to mourn
but there are so many
innocents, where
do we begin?
We want to act,
but we are incapable
and can offer
only silent prayer.
The utter and complete absurdity
of living in Florida can
be ever so easily illustrated.
Last evening the neighbor’s
dog decided it needed
to express itself and did so
in clear and loud terms.
The limpkins and gallinules
in the wetland behind
both our homes shouted back
and based on my admittedly
limited vocabulary of bird
there were several four
letter words and at least one
upraised middle claw,
for that language is universal.
And all of this was once
Native American land and I
am certain they would not be
pleased at what we have created
and the birds would agree.
The birds in the wetland
speak to me in my dreams,
telling tales of what this place
was before we arrived
and forever changed it.
They don’t curse us, although
they remind us we are cursed
by our own actions, but
they do pity us, ground bound
living in our own waste.
In the morning the birds
have disappeared, a few
vultures carrying off the bodies
left by the bobcats whose
territory we have made our own.
At night I say a prayer
for the departed birds, and in
my dreams they come again,
and reject my prayer as hollow
and seeking only absolution.
Her greeting
is met with silence.
His greeting
is met with silence.
Your touch
is met with greeting.
You want to fly,
curse the Earth
for holding you,
while it is your mind
that is your
only anchor.
A reflection on case 87 of the Shobogenzo, Dogen’s True Dharma Eye Koans
Joshu’s single question
asked twice the same
two answers, two
raised fists
each time the same
Joshu responds to each fist
each response different
each the same
a single light
both seen and unseen
both blessed curse
and cursed blessing.
Then there are the days
when the promise
to write hangs
over me like a curse,
when the words are just
loose associations
of almost random letters
and they deny,
defy real meaning.
It is on this day
where, when all
is set on the page,
I move slowly on
leaving this behind.
The small dog
frolics in the snow —
now appearing from,
now disappearing into
clouds of flakes,
while his master
stands in the door
cursing winter.
As the temperature
slides below zero,
even the snow
imagines itself
a wave
cresting onto
a South Florida beach.
an old writer and his words 