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!”

 

ENSEMBLE GALILEI

  

The Celtic Harp and Fiddle seize the day

With Scottish and Uillean Pipes and Flute,

The Viola da Gamba and Oboe,--

All intertwined to fill Saint John’s Great Hall,

Therein to celebrate the thirteenth time

The Winter Solstice with their Christmas cheer.

A seasoned Voice from Public Radio

Is instrumental also, joined with these,

And reads Jack London and Kieran O’Hare.

The Music and the Words together bring

Each other such communion of glad life,

That even the One Hundred Books receive    `

The Spirit, and come tripping off their shelves!

As Kant with Hegel, Twain with Plato dance,

The February Swans and Easter Snow

Loom through the ancient windows. Sunset yields

Its influence while Heaven and Nature sing.

 

 

MEISTER  ECKHART’S CHRISTMAS  SERMON

 

O Christians! What good

Behooves you to kneel

At mangers of wood

To praise the unreal?

 

Lullaby, goodnight,

A Savior is born

To waken the Light

Within us this morn.

 

Your god and your soul

Are figures of speech!

To that which is whole,

Mere words cannot reach.

 

Lullaby, goodnight,

A Savior is born

To waken the Light

Within us this morn.

 

And whoso lays waste

To self, he deserts

All semblance and taste

Of pleasure or mirth.

 

Lullaby, goodnight,

A Savior is born

To waken the Light

Within us this morn.

 

Then out of the void

A Word came to me,

And spoke of a joy

Too deep to be seized.

 

Lullaby, goodnight,

A Savior is born

To waken the Light

Within us this morn.

 

BORN OLD

  

I was born old,

but am growing younger

with the passing years.

 

One day I’ll awake

as a child, and put away

all adulterated things.

 

I’ll run out in the fields

and frolic with the butterflies,

like a calf who knows

 

that as he grows younger,

he grows away

from his slaughterhouse fate.

 

I was born old,

but am growing younger

with the passing years.

 

So watch me now:

One day I’ll curl up

with a wink, and disappear.

 

DIANA LEAVES HER BATH

    (after Francois Boucher)

 

I tramped through the woods,

The image of a painting

Dazzling my vision,

Like the noonday sun stared at

With presumptuous folly—

 

Seeking that lovely

Bare leg raised like my ardor,

Aching for contact,

Breathless for her breathing form:

Wilderness was my reward.

 

It is just as well:

If my dreams had come true,

What would have happened?

I would have crossed the fine line

Between the ideal and the real.

 

She would have killed me,

If I had come upon her

Unexpectedly—

Not because her guard was down,

Her warlike demeanor dropped

 

With her proud wardrobe,

But because I’d seen the look

In her dull eyes;

Her flesh so desirable

She seemed without desire,

 

With an innocence

Bordering on stupidity.

And before I’d guessed

There was nothing there but paint

Stroked upon a canvas void,

 

I’d have been struck dead

By the arrows of her wrath:

The indignation

Of a deity unveiled

Without due adulation.  

 

     SNAIL MAIL

  

When you move at a snail’s pace,

Snail mail’s the way to communicate.

Slowpoke, I scrawl a slimy

Trail across the page:

Read me against the wintry

Whiteness of old age.

 

To Christians I represent

The deadly sin of Sloth;

To Greeks the time to harvest;

But the Aztec moon god

Carries my shell on his back.

Think of the armor you lack!

 

Tyrian Purple I secrete,

Prized by the Phonecian brigades,

Sign of royalty and wealth,

Gracing the sails of their fleet,

Embodying good health—

For it’s slow to bleed or fade.

 

In a Javanese folk tale

Keong Emas is my name:

Princess magically confined

In a snail shell’s golden frame.

That’s a story children should mind,

For it teaches them to be kind.

 

In France you can eat me:

I can’t escape, I’m too slow.

But just before you say grace,

Take a look at your escargot:

Can you confidently state

You won’t end up on a plate?

 

Brothers and sisters, take heed:

No matter how fast you speed,

This old world is still a globe.

What goes around comes around,

All before you can make a sound.

Easy and slow: that’s the way to go.                 

 

Note: The folktale of Keong Emas, or one of its versions, goes roughly as follows. There was a king and queen, and another king coveted the queen and kidnapped her. However, a god who looked favorable on her rescued her by turning her into a golden snail. He told her to drift along a river in order to find her husband, which she did. There was an old widow who was fishing one day and caught the snail in her net and took it home in a jar as a pet. By and by she noticed that while she went out for the day, someone had prepared a meal for her and had done her housework. After several days of this, she sneaked up and peeked through the window to see who was doing this and saw the queen coming out of the jar. So before the queen could get back to the snailshell, the old woman rushed in and smashed it, thus breaking the spell, and adopted the queen as her daughter. Meanwhile the king had been searching for his wife, and eventually found her with the old woman, and the three of them lived happily ever after.

  

 

IMMORTAL IN SPLASHED INK by Liang Kai, 12^th century

  

Who would think that such

a miserable wretch as this

would be an Immortal?

How stupid and how vague!

If he is even conscious,

you’d put it on a par with a slug.

And yet—and yet—

experience will vindicate

his nebulosity.

His bald head,

unkempt beard,

ragged robes,

bare chest and feet—

all bespeak the end of birth and death.

He is unborn, for he craves nothing.

He will not die, for self is only a dream.