WHAT IS IT?
The more you try
To do anything about it,
The less you can
Do anything at all.
Although you can
Do nothing without it,
Without you
It will get along.
Do not interfere
With whatever it is—
Only let go of consciousness,
And miracles
Will not be extraordinary.
What is it?
When you know what it is,
You are not free
From perplexities.
When you know nothing,
It is no more
Your concern to know
What anything is.
AFTER BUDDHAGHOSA
You see, just as a marionette is void,
Soulless and without curiosity,
And while it walks and stands and sits and speaks
Through combinations of the strings employed
To make it seem as though it might enjoy,
Like us, the drama of life’s vain desires—
Seems to have hopes and dreams and to aspire—
One’s own frail ego stands in such a poise,
Seeming to be concerned and well aware.
And this is what the ancient masters tell:
Though mind-and-matter certainly are here,
No human being in them can be found;
For they are null and fashioned like a doll—
Just suffering, piled up like grassy mounds.
DELIVERYMAN
In the dawn's early light,
the crunch of the milkman's tires
on our gravel driveway.
Glass bottles of milk
wait on our front porch
to catch the gleam of the sun.
That was another world.
We were other people.
Behold, the milkman cometh.
My images dangle from the sky
like cotton candy in a puppet show.
Easy come, easy go.
My possessions stand safe,
in white plastic bottles capped
with bright red homogenized blood.
Verily, I've meat to eat
ye know not of, washed down
with the milk of human kindness.
THE PINE TREE STATE
O Evergreen, I like the way you follow
The sky as you grow upward through the years,
Reaching, reaching, toward the vast and clear!
And when your needles pierce that twinkling hollow
Of space, and all Earth’s universe you swallow,
I feel that then I too shall be complete:
My roots and branches stretching deep to deep,
O Evergreen, to reach the end of sorrow.
And as you sway above me, I below
Shall spread before you on still waters’ tides
Reflections through the seasons as we grow
Dependently upon each other’s lives.
In me you plumb the depths, in you I rise,
Inseparably embodied in this scene—
One Man whose Mind is always Evergreen.
TAO MAN
He stands
Within a forest scene
That bursts
With futile energy,
Which flourishes
And yet must die.
His triumph
Is a Poetry
Without a rhythm
Or a rhyme:
His body
Like a withered tree,
His mind
Like slaked lime.
I wander
Irresolutely,
Against the winds
Opposing me,
Yet wonder why
I cannot burn my seeds
And stand,
My branches breaking off,
While wind becomes
My winding sheet—
My sepulcher,
The earth and sky.
His Vision
Lacks the artistry
I strive to rein
With word-strung lines:
My vision fails,
While his remains
Within the depths
I cannot plumb,
Or mine:
His body
Like a withered tree,
His mind
Like slaked lime.
PAPER WORK
I looked at a tree.
It looked back at me!
I turned away,
Red-faced with shame:
For the woods looked
More real to me
On paper, and in memory,
Than in their green
Reality.
But wouldn’t I rather
Have joined in the laughter
The humorous breeze
Tickled out of a myriad
Fanciful leaves?
Alas! I would rather
Be back in my study,
Typing away—
The simulated
Wood-grain panels
Reflecting the myriad pages
Of my treatise
On Ecology!
