I am indistinct, male
of reasonable height
and weight, a bit much
more than I care,
but hardly distinct.
I have not suffered
mysogeny, been
overlooked for
being the wrong
gender, as if
there is right
and wrong.
I have not felt
the sting
of racism, I am
merely one
of the lemmings
marching along
to the abyss
certain of my
privilege, able
to cede my
humanity.
I have already visited
countless churches
basilicas, shrines
and admired the art,
the simple beauty,
free of liturgy and belief.
I did not stop
to pray, to implead,
merely to see,
to listen, to absorb.
for I was a Jew.
a nonbeliever
in a Christian world
silently tolerated.
Now, I have learned
I was only half Jewish,
half, hidden a polyglot
of Christianity,
a descendant of saints,
and now churches
have a heavy weight
I find hard to bear.
If you claim
this world weighs
heavily on you,
and ask what to do
you will be told
to simply sit.
If this is not
clear to you
you may say so.
When you carry
another world
to this place
you will understand
and be weightless
If you meet the Bodhisattva
you don’t ask someone
to carve the image from your mind.
To the carver, she weighs but an ounce
and can be carried
on his fingertip
but try and lift her
and you will not be able
to move her from her place.
All Buddhas
are one Buddha
but his Buddha
will never be
your Buddha.
A reflection on Case 58 of the Iron Flute Koans.
He is for it or he is
against it, and if you could
predict the vacillations you
could develop the means
of measuring the flux of sanity.
You could as easily grasp
the water flowing downriver
and by asking select questions
determine the next heavy rain,
but the odds are good
you will be outside when
the deluge begins, and
only its ultimate weight
and duration remain to be felt.
It all comes down to the same
thing, if you could paint the sky
blue, precisely which shade
of blue would you use and why
that one for heaven’s sake
A robe is
infinitely heavy,
the mountain weighs
less than a feather
you can move neither
but the you before you
carries both
like a breath.
We are obligated to carry
memories, and as we
get older, the burden grows
ever heavier, we bend
under its weight, knowing
we dare not lose even one
for once cast off, the weight
is carried off like the smallest
feather on a storming wind.
Soon enough it is we who
Will become the burden
that others must carry
and we hope they will
willingly shoulder the load
lest we become the excised
dust of a forgotten stone
grown over with weeds.
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.
Quantum gravitation,
I strongly suggest,
is something on which
you cannot really count.
I know all things
are supposed
to be relative
but as an only
and adopted child
I have none,
for me relativity
is something special
and generally
the lack weighs heavily.
If you meet the Bodhisattva,
you don’t ask someone
to carve the image from your mind.
To the carver, she weighs but an ounce
and can be carried
on his fingertip
but try to lift her
and you will not be able
to move her from her place.
All Buddhas
are one Buddha
but his Buddha
will never be
your Buddha.
A reflection on case 58 of the Iron Flute (Tetteki Tosui)
an old writer and his words 