As a child, when I
had trouble falling asleep
my mother would trot out
the ancient saw and tell me
to just count sheep.
I tried to point out
to her that we lived
in an upscale suburb
and there were no sheep
for miles for me to count.
This hardly deterred her
and she repeated her
directions, in a stronger
tone of voice that she thought
brooked no argument.
I did try counting sheep
but still couldn’t sleep
given my congestion
and sneezing from what
I learned was a wool allergy.
He says he wants to know
what I want done with my ashes
knowing I want to be cremated.
I tell him I need to think
about that for a while, knowing
that “while” could be an ever
shortening lifespan, but I
dare not tell him that, it
simply wouldn’t be acceptable
he would respond, setting off
another endless discussion.
I don’t say that time, in this
rare instance, is on my side
for truth be told I don’t care
what he does with my ashes,
I am gone and that’s that ,
bit a nice spot in the center
of the mantle in the formal
living room would be nice.
You really ought to pause
and wonder just how different
the world might be today
if in that crucial moment
things had gone in
a wholly different direction.
A single moment can
set the course for all
of the moments that follow,
a definite future plucked
from an infinite array
of possibilities.
I mean, of course,
that moment when
Mr. McGuire, in the guise
of Walter Brooke turns
to Benjamin Braddock,
for what if he had said
“I want to say just one
word to you: Ecology”
and when asked what
he meant, he would add
“There’s a great future
in ecology. Think about it.”
Sitting atop a hundred foot pole
you are convinced there are
only two directions: pole and down.
Old Osho asks, how will you proceed
and you stare back at this lunatic.
How will you proceed, he repeats?
You release the pole
step slowly away, looking
at ten directions before you,
you move your feet, each one
touches the path of each
of the three worlds and Osho
gently touching your elbow
walks a bit by your side.
A reflection on case 46 of the Mumonkan (Gateless Gate) Koans.
Pause and consider why so many questions
require you, you feel, to consult your watch,
to call up a calendar, to appoint time.
Time has no appointments, time is not
an arrow, though we strive always to aim it,
to send it flying in our desired direction.
Time is a point in space, surrounded by
all ten directions, going toward none of them.
Ask why this moment is not enough, why you need
the next though it does not exist.
What are you trying to escape by searching
for tomorrow, lingering in yesterday?
Yesterday no longer exists, so why
do you assume tomorrow does, and what
of this moment, which exists only now,
and what of the red leaf sitting
in mid-air awaiting your awed attention?
A reflection on Case 6 of the Hekiganroku (Blue Cliff Record)
Dusk reflects dawn much as
dawn reflects dusk, and it is
our fear of night and deep need
for direction that sets them apart.
Imagine a photograph of the sun
hovering just over the horizon,
compass-less we do not know
what preceded, what will follow.
We prefer day and dawn, for
it is then we feel in control,
our thoughts leashed, our fears
locked away from sight and touch.
Dusk promises only night,
the darkness where our fears
find corners in which to hide,
only to spring out unwanted.
So we turn away from the sky,
unsinged by its flaming beauty,
hide ourselves from and in fear
as nature laughs at our foolishness.
It takes only moments for someone
to ask for a definition of poetry.
That task is at once terribly
simple and equally impossible,
a poem is many things
but not now or ever:
a paean to a self-aggrandizing
leader without soul
or sense of direction,
moral and literal;
a rant on how
all are conspiring
against you despite
your stable genius;
a Jeremiad decrying
facts contrary
to what you wish
them to be;
any attempt you
make or condone
to rewrite
“The New Colossus.”
From this place
traverse a thousand paths
visit the ten directions
with unmoving feet
and recount your tale
with frozen tongue
to we deaf
quadriplegics.
She imagined what it must be like to have wings. She always wanted to be unmoored from the ground, to be free of its incessant pull, to look down on it from high above, and not with aid of contraption, just her, arms outstretched. The ground was a prison. She could move about, yes, but never really free, that sixth direction always denied to her. The sea was as close as she could come to true freedom, the sandy bottom dropping away, but the water was an imperfect atmosphere. She finally found the courage and stepped free of the cliff, felt the wind beneath her, the earth below falling away and coming up under her. She flew on until the alarm clock ended her flight.
There is a reason –
there must be a reason
for everything, that is
just how things are supposed
to be, how we decree them.
And when things are events,
we are at liberty to
tell them to comply with our direction.
If they fail, then we consign them
to miracles or the work
of the devil, though we
expect him to obey the rules
as well, for otherwise
he, too, would be a miracle
and that would leave
a Gordian knot
we dare not try to unravel.
an old writer and his words 