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.
