WHITE BREAD

He was nondescript, innocuous. He named his dog Dog. His cat was called Cat. He grew daring with his parakeet and named it Wings. He wore beige from head to toe. Even his Sunday best, his “weddings and funerals suit” he called it, was beige. People wondered if his underwear was beige. He swore that it was, but with just enough of a smirk people couldn’t be certain. His house was painted beige as were his roof shingles. His car was beige inside and out. All his furniture was pine or a light oak. When he died, they found a note with instructions on the funeral, the burial, every detail, on beige paper, of course. And they found the beige suit bag in the closet with the rainbow colored suit that he was to be buried in.

LIFE, ABBREVIATION

Arrival noted, 11:30 P.M.
delivery normal, baby
prepared for agency, mother
released in two days, baby
to foster care, then
to adoptive parents.

No memories, save one,
a fall, bathroom, head
bleeding, black and white
floor tile, radiator harder
than child’s skull.

Now 70, the same person,
a lying mirror each day,
a small cemetery, West
Virginia, a headstone
a mother finally,
a life of mourning.

ONE FLAVOR ZEN

How far must you wander
to taste the pure essence,
hear the pure note,
see deeply into beauty,
smell the first flower of spring,
touch another heart.
Will you grow tired
from standing still
in total silence
contemplating this?

A reflection on Case 65 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (Trud Dharma Eye)

ARIA

After years of embarrassment
I have finally come into the light.
It isn’t that my writing has improved,
although I surmise that would
be a narrow space to fill,
or that I can now draw things
that were once stick people
and animals and things.

What has improved, and
improved significantly
is my singing voice, once
a three note range, and one
not known to music,
but now I carry complex
tunes to near perfection.

If you ask how this
is possible, I will let
you in on a secret, it is
all in the audience,
and mine is now limited
to those stone deaf.

MELODY

The melody arose from the most unexpected place.
They heard it deep within the woods
and even the birds fell silent
peering around, searching
for its unrevealed source.
It carried on for several verses
and then, as quickly as it came
it was gone, the final note
carried off by a spring wind.
No one entered, no one left
the woods that day
and though many searched
no instrument was found
and the trees of the woods
grew silent at the searchers’ approach.