Freedom

May 29, 2023

THE SURANGAMA SCRIPTURE’S NOT SEEING

It happens every day,
when I arise from the cushion
and look, I see myself there.
If you look, you say you see me as well.
It will happen one day
that when I arise from the cushion
and look I will not see myself.
If you look, you will say you see me,
and I will nod in agreement.
Each day when I see myself,
I know that it is I who I am seeing.
But each day I see an illusion,
masquerading as I, a delusion,
and I see you seeing me, a delusion.
Each day you see me, you see
a delusion, but a different delusion.
Consider how strange this is,
for on the day I do not see myself
I see no delusion, but you see me
and see a delusion, but I do not
see you, for there is no me to see you,
and just then I am free of delusion.

A reflection on Case 94 of the Blue Cliff Record (碧巌録, Hekiganroku)

February 5, 2023

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

They can have sharp edges
that wound on contact, some cuts
so deep they leave lasting scars.

They can get stuck in the throat
until you feel you can no longer
breathe, no longer cry out for help.

They can lie there, an
aggregate always acreting
and yet rejecting any meaning.

Or they can, carefully chosen
present great beauty, offer
hope, promise freedom.

They are the currency of poets
and writers, and they chronicle
our history and our lives.

January 7, 2023

EIRE

They say you must cherish
your memories lest they slip
away in the night, trying for
a freedom you deny them.

I remember Ireland, knowing
it was home although at the time
I thought I was Ashkenazi
and Portuguese, but my genes
were trying to tell me something.

I remember driving a stick
shift down narrow roads,
always keeping in mind
the advice, “if you hear
the branches of the yellow
gorse against the side
of the car you’re fine, if
you hear the stone of the fences
you’ll have a large bill
when you return the car.

And Guinness on tap, always
Guinness on tap.

January 4, 2023

PRISONERS

As we sit
in the great metal tube
we imagine ourselves
birds awaiting the freedom
only the sky offers.

The clouds reach down
swaddling us and we
realize that we have
yet to fledge, likely
never will do so.

Peering out the small
window, the earth shrinks
and grows large again,
and as we step out,
the birds look at us
and feel only pity.

November 27, 2022

WASHING OUT

I wrote down the biggest
mistakes I made in life
on the backs of newly fallen
maple leaves, and carried them,
a fair number, to the river.

I cast them onto the water,
some quickly swept up,
a few lingering on a fallen
tree partially damming
the flow, waiting for this.

Most disappeared as
the water approached
the falls, cascaded over
on its way to the waiting lake
and then to a place unknown.

This was an act of catharsis,
for the maple, if not for me,
a freedom, not to bear
the burden of impending winter,
frozen still with regrets.

November 11, 2022

KYIV

From the moment it began, we knew, it was
obvious that peace and freedom were under assault,
Russia had thrown societal norms to the wind.

Under gunmetal gray skies they attacked by air,
killing women, children, destroying hospitals, homes
raining hell on the innocents with nowhere to turn.
All we could do was watch, pray and offer paltry aid
in the hope that this proud nation could hold out,
negotiate some peace, maintain their freedom,
emerge like the phoenix slowly rising from the rubble.

October 21, 2022

ONE MORE

How many nails does
a simple coffin need?

They hammered another one
today, the largest yet.

We had invited them
to do so it seems.

We were upset by this
but there was nothing we
could really do except
call them out and threaten
to do what exactly
has never been clear.

So we are left to mourn
again the death, knowing
that there can be no
resurrection for Ukraine
and freedom itself
is a step closer to death.

October 13, 2022

A SEPTEMBER SKY

Lie back, I said to her,
just stare up that way
stare into the sky
without any clear focus.
Do you see him now,
the hunter with his bow
outstretched, the belt
cinched about his waist
locked in his eternal search
for the prey that would free him
from his nightly quest.
And there, I pointed
can you see the great bear
gamboling with her child
or there a goddess reclining
on her heavenly throne.
Now she said, that’s
not it at all, not even close,
look over there, don’t you see
a small child crying out
for her mother,
and there, two lovers
locked in an eternal embrace,
their lips barely touching,
hips pressed together
reclining as one,
and there, clear as day
a cat lying curled
as though sleeping
in the warmth of a hearth.

Publshed in As Above, So Below, Issue 9, August 2022
https://issuu.com/bethanyrivers77/docs/as_above_so_below_issue_9

August 4, 2022

ON ARRIVING

They arrive after a long flight
from tyranny, from oppression
from the nightmare of endless
fear, from hunger, from faith
denied, from the bottomless
depths of poverty, scarred
memories etched in their souls,
hoping for an ending as much
as wishing for a new beginning.
They have been here, a new
generation, raised on the stories,
versed in the painful history,
still residual anger born
of love for those who fled,
without the pain of experience,
who can forget when it is
others who now wish only
to arrive to the freedom they
have known since childhood

First appeared in Circumference, Issue 5, June 2022
https://poetryatpi.wordpress.com/