MOUSE-EARS

  

Spangled galaxy

Blooming green darkness’

Infinite space.

 

My back lawn

Belongs to all

Sentient beings.

 

Rhizomes—

Inherent tendencies,

Dependently arising.

 

Exfoliations of sunlight!

Neglected the mowing

One more day.

 

Sat on the porch,

Dazzled gold:

Irrepressible Weed.

 

 

 

 

I COULDN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT TOMORROW

  

Once upon a time I wanted to be somebody else,

And everyone assured me this was possible.

 

They said, “You can be whatever you want,

As long as you follow your dreams.”

 

So I shook up my dreams in a plastic bag,

Each on a separate piece of paper.

 

And every day I would close my eyes

And grope in my own dream lottery;

 

And every time I would fail, they would say,

“Tomorrow is another day, Scarlett.”

 

Come to think of it, they were all Calvinists—

Believers in double predestination.

 

They were the Chosen Ones, of course;

Not that they could do anything about it.

 

But the Damned don’t have much choice either,

Except to choose the Ultimate Failure:

 

To live in the Present, no matter what dreams

Blow down the street and get caught in fences.

 

So here I am in a dark wood, happy to be a lost soul,

Clueless about tomorrow, emptied of yesterdays.

 

 

APOCHRYPHA

  

Without biblical imagery

A desiccated oak leaf

Swivels on its stem,

Stuck in a sunlit sheet of snow

Tracing a wheel within a wheel

With the points of its tips,

And comes to rest

Fixed like a sundial,

Shadow frozen

Upon the face of time

 

BORRELIA BURGDORFERI

 

 

The hour of Noon began its slow decline,

Though I descended faster than the Sun.

Fatigue and a dull headache had begun

Abrading the coarse fabric of the Mind,

Which came unraveled, leaving me behind,

Apparently—as if all motives bled

To feed that dazzling liquid acre spread

With yellow Water Lilies and sunshine.

 

Was it the Tick I found attached last spring—

One solitary insect that contained

Those countless Lilies in each pore, floating?

Upon each blossom Buddhas, and their trains

Of Bodhisattvas, poised themselves to bless,

Revealing Nature as pure Emptiness.

 

“HELLO, MY NAME IS...”

 

 

Those labels that you gave me:

I dumped them on the floor

As soon as I got home today,

And one by one did sort

Through every category,

While contemplating which

Neat designation might apply

To one so poor and rich

As I, who pinned each label on

Before that empty self

Which from the looking glass assessed

The features of my wealth.

 

“An artist you are not,” I said,

“For Art is too much style;

Philosopher you cannot be,

Because of your denial

Of formulae to those who seek

A system. Neither do

You anything approximate

To teacher or guru,

But somehow are a hybrid growth

Evolved in sun and rain.

You spread your boughs, revealing

What labels cannot name.”

 

I took your laundry tickets

And flushed them down the bowl.

So now when people ask me

What mantra suits my soul,

I say, “Hello, my Name is...”

And peel away my face!

And leave them with a looking glass

To occupy the space.

 

          ALTER EGO

 

 

The man I was looms over me,

Like a father teaching his son to read.

     Like a shadow cast

     From the fateful past,

He haunts me with his deeds.

He wants me to carry on his seed.

 

This man is more than history--

His inmost core a mystery

     That he disowns.

     I reap what he has sown.

My passion flows from him;

And where he ends, I must begin.

 

But when his folly shall no more

Delude me, and the Other Shore

      At last I’ve reached,--

      And from that beach

The undulating waves

His errant footprints have erased,--

 

That man will be a Parable

Of human destiny, as well:

      A lesson learned,

      Not to be spurned

By those who seek to free

Mankind from self-made misery.

 

     BIRD’S NEST

 

 

Lifetimes ago, in ancient T’ang,

I served as governor

(For poets could be rulers then)

And all was just and fair—

 

For I did balance art and life,

Creating such a tone

Throughout my district, that the law

And beauty were as one.

 

One day I strolled upon my rounds,

And saw that all was good.

Emerging from the mist, I stopped

Beside a tangled wood

 

And peered for birds amid the dense

Brocade of uncut trees,

When suddenly my eyes grew wide

To see what I did see!

 

A hermit monk had roosted in

The branches up above,

In such a nest of leaves and twigs

As only birds could love.

 

So anxious for an interview,

I stood beneath his shade

And cried, “Your seat is perilous,

And are you not afraid?”

 

“You seat is worse by far than mine,”

The recluse did reply;

To which I almost took offense,

Then thought to ask him why.

 

“I see no danger where I am,”

I said, “For I am he

Who rules here as the sages did

Before all history!”

 

“Then you don’t know yourself,” he smiled;

“For while your passions burn,

And mind is bobbing like a cork,

What safety have you earned?”

 

“What is the teaching, then,” I asked,

“Of which all Buddhas speak?”

For I had arguments prepared

Against my own defeat.

 

“To do no evil,” he replied,

“While practicing all good;

To keep the heart sincere and pure--

This speaks of Buddahood.”

 

I must confess I heard with scorn.

“Why, any three year old

Can parrot such a well-known verse!

Is only this your goal?”

 

“A three year old may know it well,”

He chirped, “But here I sit,

An eighty year old man, and find

It hard to practice it!”

 

RAINBOWS AND WATERFALLS

 

Place flowers here before the Shrine

That honors the Enlightened One—

Although He is not anywhere.

And let us henceforth cease to care

About the ego that dissolves

Like a rainbow on a waterfall.

 

The wise see each phenomenon

As like a bubble or mirage,

And so escape the King of Death.

They liken all things unto breath,

Or dreams out of the depths recalled—

Or rainbows on a waterfall.

 

He is profound, immeasurable;

He clings to nothing, He is null.

Behold the Ever-Vanishing,

The Ever-Present, glimmering

Like sunlight on the sea at dawn—

Or a rainbow on a waterfall.