Grasping our nothing
we try sharing everything;
we are all alone.
Wholeness disguises itself
in the mirror’s reflection.
We hold our nothing
like a vast, sacred treasure;
our fingers give out.
Beyond the edge of owning,
true experience begins.
22 JAN 2025
Imagine what the world looks like right now: a mass illusion wrapped up in a dream. There are no other lands or hidden gods, nor unconnected causes or effects.
What would you change or wish you could improve, in just this moment while you have the chance? Before you take a breath, your time is done. Before a single step, there’s no more dance.
Imagine this: reality goes on, beyond the small abstractions of your mind. The moving finger finds the waning moon, but cannot simply grasp it in the sky.
What will you do to change the world you see, brave champion of just the truth you know?
07 DEC 2024
There is no trying:
Either you are a Buddha
or you are not One.
Once past duality
there is no more “in training”;
linear time ends,
and everything is
connected as Everything.
There is nothing else.
Just you and the breath,
this moment right here and now:
being Bodhisattva.
22 AUG 2024
The scrabble of claws
across the linoleum:
waking with the dogs.
At the first hint of morning,
they are ready to go.
Forget your sleeping.
The moment your body stirs,
their insistence starts.
Outside, outside! they clamor,
until you do their bidding.
Resistance is futile:
bedcovers pulled from your eyes,
the morning sun blinds.
You need no alarm clock’s ring
once these furry kids awake.
02 FEB 2017
’Tis morning, for the cock at dawn has crowed;
and in the bustle of the waking day
each wipes away the sleep and takes their load
from where it slept – and moves along their way.
Some burdens may seem lighter than the rest,
mere trifles, more akin to happiness
than heavy sacks of lead, that like regret
retard our steps to what’s not happened yet,
and on that journey teach us not to laugh.
Each morning thus compels us to forget
when we erased lines from our epitaph.
’Tis midday, for the luncheon horn does blow;
we clamor at our labor’s too brief stay
to gossip cursed luck and need to know,
then guess what waits thru the rest of the day.
In blind and muted prophecy, the jest
of some wild, mad extravagance suggests
of universes far beyond us yet;
eternity, with lies, makes us forget
the vanity of hope, prayer of our past,
the time before this toil, and work, and sweat,
when we erased lines from our epitaph.
’Tis twilight, for the sun is falling low;
we wander aimless home at break of day
and with the last of energy’s brave glow
lay down our burdens to escape the fray.
For some, the pause is the part they love best:
the proof of having passed some trying test.
While others, in the dull and sticky sweat,
self-medicate to soothe plaguing regret
that their grim lives just slip away so fast,
still filled with what were dreams not happened yet
when we erased lines from our epitaph.
And now the sun at last is finally set,
its golden hours replaced by hues of jet
with just a few pale lanterns on the path,
to hint at what had not quite happened yet
when we erased lines from our epitaph.
7 FEB 2017
I am the soft and silent spring
that well-oiled, whispers while it winds;
I am the scent of somber smoke
that wisps its wild way through the wood;
I am the gentle grasp of green
that in the spring succors the seed;
I am the tacit, tender touch
that germinates the garden grains.
I am the mist that mires the marsh,
the cloud that cloaks the clearing’s clover,
the wistful wind that wets the wheat
with drops of dew at new day’s dawning.
What good a world not filled with wonder?
What need this wandering without ways?
What use a wild that wants no wander?
6 FEB 2017
And so around again:
the how, the where, the when;
could be and might have been;
the raven or the wren.
The sword versus the pen:
in battles now and then
it’s hard to tell who wins;
the line is blurred, and blends.
What’s up around the bend?
Who knows? To see us then
is merely to pretend,
to forecast of the end.
The currency we spend
for lies and hope depends
on credit from our friends
and how we limit them.
We dare not to offend
what might hide in the glen
awaiting living men
who march to war again.
How fast the truth descends!
Around our necks it wends
and gyres, while we extend
our courtesies. Amen.
Off round and round again;
we start, we end, we spin.
3 FEB 2017
