nothing

March 23, 2023

AND COUNTING

How many times
had they almost met
over the years before that evening?

What if the Fates
had allowed meetings,
what would have changed?
Likely everything, nothing,
for when they might have met
neither was available,
he a student imagining himself
already in love, or both married
never thinking those relationships
would possibly end in divorce.

And how many times had they
been in the same place
separated by moments or hours,
so many missed connections.

And then the moment of convergence
two lives forever changed,
two worlds merged
in an unanticipated joy.

March 17, 2023

HYMNAL

Open to page 147 of your hymnals.
There is nothing to sing there
for the words of promise once
found there have withered
and faded, carried off on now
toxic winds, so hold your breath
or whatever heaven you imagine
will be too soon be approaching
at a speed exceeding imagination.

You don’t remember how you got here,
things happened around you
when you weren’t paying attention
but, you say, what can you do
about it, it’s not your problem
so you are happy to let someone
else deal with it, you are sure
it will be dealt with if you
stay out of the way, do nothing.

So while you are blindly waiting
perhaps you can join the others
just like you, in your final prayers.

March 6, 2023

SEPPO’S POISON SNAKE

When you look
in the mirror
what do you really see?
If you say yourself
you are blind.
If you say nothing
you have grasped
the heart of the Dharma.
If you shatter the mirror
you have found Nirvana.

A reflection on Case 24 of the Book of Equanimity 従容錄, Shōyōroku

January 5, 2023

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY

I am just wondering
what you would say
if you were called
to testify about all
that you had seen,
all that had disgusted you,
all that you condemned
but did and said
nothing while it occurred.
What would you say
if you had no choice
but truth, no shading,
no mincing of words,
just the harsh light
and you in a chair
in an empty room,
a disembodied voice
asking endless questions?
It is best that you
remain silent, say
nothing at all,
for we have already
judged you, and you
know your own guilt.

First appeared in Literary Cocktail Magazine, Fall Issue 2022, Volume I Issue II
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VEgeWfNp5SFGSm8nW8QegM1WuNUa_s99/view

December 4, 2022

ASKING

Asking saints to intercede
is something quite new to me,
having never considered that saints
were people whom I might seek out.

I’ve started carefully, only
seeking saints who hang
on my family tree, Margaret,
Itta, Begga, Adela, Arnulf,

and I’ve vowed to ask nothing
for myself, for karma will
see to me one way or another,
so I ask only for those in need.

I don’t know if the saints
will respond, or how I would
know if they did, but my wife says
that prayer never hurts,

and I cannot argue with that.

September 26, 2022

JOSHU’S DOG

My teacher once asked me
“what do you have
to say for yourself,” and I
answered “absolutely nothing,”
or did I smile and remain silent?

You assume the teacher would
be upset with the silent student
and in most cases you would
be perfectly correct.

But if this occurred
in a zendo, having nothing
to say is a step toward no-self
and you can be
in that moment,
Joshu’s dog.

A reflection on Case 18 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)

May 31, 2022

TREASURES

I keep in my pocket
all the treasures of my family,
all of the keepsakes from my mother,
and those from my father
given to me when they died.

I would share them with you,
but they are highly personal
and would not mean much to one
who never knew my parents
or my step brother, the one

with whom I have not spoken
since the text announcing
our father’s death, so I cherish
what I have in my pocket for
nothing was all I hoped for.

November 28, 2021

ON THE MANTLE

Perhaps it is just that I
do not have a mantle on which
to place the cherished artifacts
of my life, my parents
and grandparents photos,
a family Tanach, the tallis
my first adoptive father wore
to his Bar Mitzvah.

I have nothing, which this day
seems sadly appropriate,
for their history really is
not mine, never was, I
simply borrowed it for a time
but all loans must end
for that is their nature.

I have a photo of her
gravestone the worman
who bore me, of her
in her college yearbook,
of him in a group shot
of his unit, in uniform
but I still have no mantle
and so little to place there
if i ever did have one.