present

December 5, 2020

ON BEING

They arrive unannounced
often not seen until
they have been among us
and won’t say how
or when they arrived.
Some claim to have seen
their arrival as they
have seen other visitors
visible only to them,
and predict their departure
with a certainty born
of a delusion or a sense
beyond the understanding.
Others say that the
are merely us in masquerade,
it is we who are deluded
for there is no arrival
by an ongoing presence.
I say nothing, for I
am one of them, just
as I am one of us, I am
recently arrived, while
I have long been here
and either you or I
may or may not be deluded.

May 29, 2020

DEMENTIA

He can remember it as though it was just yesterday. Actually it was just yesterday, but for him that had little to do with memory. Bits of his childhood would come flooding back: the city, the cousins who took him in for the few dollars his mother could offer. But his grandsons are a vague shadow, sometimes present, sometimes faded into the background. He ex-wife is ever present, and he clings to her, despite her death, wondering if they will get back together. I don’t want to tell him that his wish will require a firm belief by them both in a hereafter, and that neither of them was very good at directions in any event, so who knows where they will end up.

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:
Bird-of-the-day.com 

May 12, 2020

KEEPING FOCUS

It is of little surprise that we find
this a dizzying world, for we always
try to look forward, but since the future
is often vague, we try and keep one eye
on the past to understand what
our other eye is poorly seeing.

The mind does not care to be
pulled in two directions at once,
objects with stabbing pains, and
when that fails to correct us,
a weariness we cannot overcome.

The Buddha would tell you
it is best to keep both eyes
in the present, to focus softly
and see what is there without
judgement or preconception, to simply

be, assured that all senses are
merely crude tools to shape what
is amorphous into something we
can grasp and file, but time itself knows
there is nothing more than now, ever.

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:
Bird-of-the-day.com 

May 5, 2020

IN SEARCH

En route to Buddhism, I must admit
I stopped at numerous philosophical
way-stations, none quite as equipped as I
would desire and so I moved on.

Buddhism was my solution, no demands
other than I be present, knowing
I had no real choice but to do so,
all in the recognition of that fact.

I did consider other faiths and -isms,
and each but one had something
to beckon me, but each was incomplete
and I was looking for a full solution.

The easiest to reject was nihilism,
for while it was the simplest to adopt,
asking, no demanding, nothing from me,
assuring me all was nothing in the end,

I knew it would fail me in the most
essential way, for I discovered there
were no great nihilist poets, how do you
write when there is nothing real to say?

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:
Bird-of-the-day.com 

March 25, 2019

SOZAN’S FOUR DON’TS 鐵笛倒吹 九十二

You may seek to follow
the path of the dove
a fool know many roads.
You may wrap yourself
in fine linen, an infant
wears only his skin
and knows this moment
is already gone.

Think long before you speak
of how to walk
along the path, of where it leads.
The baby says nothing,
will not speak of where
he has been,
where he is going, for to him
there is only here,
and silence
is descriptive enough.

A reflection on case 92 of the Iron Flute Koans