There is a heaviness to the sky
a weightiness belied
by the gray of the clouds,
even the departing sun
seems to whisper that it
will be replaced by rain in short order.
You feel the weight bearing down,
as the heat of the day dissipates,
and although the first drops
have not yet fallen, you know
that it is best to be within
when the rain begins
for it will do so without warning
and with little care
for your presence,
for this is how Spring
demands your attention.
If there are no clouds,
punish the sky
with your stick.
If there is no sun
punish the clouds
with your stick.
As you walk the Way
both road and sky
know your stick
with each step.
If you doze
will you strike
yourself with your stick
or grab it away?
If you are truly looking for the way
why do you insist on using your eyes.
Any teacher will tell you that your eyes
see nothing, they are only lenses through which
a delusion is created in the mind.
The mind has no eyes, but it is all
that enables you to see anything.
So abandon the eyes that see nothing,
and the mind that only thinks it sees.
Settle on the cushion until you
and the earth and the sky are one,
indistinguishable from each other,
and everything, which is nothing,
will appear before you if only
you refuse to acknowledge it.
On this night the moon
should be new or full, the sun
should reflect on this
More than a billion
stars will fill the sky tonight
I see just a few
Evening clouds gather
staring down on the city
imagining rain
You have no sense
of being on an island
standing on the corner
waiting for the light,
caught cursing those
who block the box.
It is odd having to look up
to see the sky, gray
on this day, but here
the horizon is only chrome,
glass and stone.
It is only from
the 45th floor
that the river
brings you to ground.
Only in New York will you find a giraffe looking up at taller buildings
and not thinking this the least bit strange. People always look up at
buildings and it is never strange, but people know that giraffes must
be different and their looking up is by its very nature strange. Giraffes
look down at people as well. This is not strange, and people accept this
although they are usually not pleased. People do not like being looked
down upon. Not even by giraffes.
They cut neat incisions
across the slate blue sky.
The wounds they leave
slowly peel back
the white edges slowly spreading
until the sky hemorrhages
its cloud-like streaks.
The oak drops
yet another acorn
and the squirrel scampers
to gather it in
before the sky flees
under its gray-white blanket.
