POLYPHEMUS

  

Throughout this fabled country of the free,

And dominating every living room,

There squats a Cyclops sentry guard to whom

All dwellers in each cavern must concede

A backward posture, so that his eyebeam

May cast upon the darkened wall shadows,

Which take the shapes of things they cannot know--

And this is how they realize their dreams.

 

But woe unto the man who sues for grace

In meditation, or who longs to hold

Communion with a living human face!

He winces, when upon the cave’s damp mold

They worship an electrical device,

And in that trance envision Paradise.

 

THE TWILIGHT LANGUAGE

 

Before the sun sets, the landscape grows dense

And darkens into ambiguity.

 

All objects take on a significance

At once familiar and hard to see.

 

What we dismissed as nothing new or strange—

Trees, stone, moss, fences, sky, stars, grass, river—

Speak to our hearts in the twilight language.

 

The boundaries of our bodies quiver,

And we dissolve like raindrops in the sea.

 

A lightning flash illuminates the gloom

Of all our furtive, momentary dreams.

 

The mudras of the pine boughs pierce the moon’s

Mandala and the mantra of the wind

Chants wordless tones that still the storm within.

 

JANUARY SEEMINGS

  

Today my brains

are like clouds

in a windswept sky.

 

Without concentration

they bounce about my skull

like a roomful of ping-pong balls.

 

Perhaps it was the blizzard,

and all those feet of snow

that walked round my house for hours--

 

stood on the roof, waiting,

till that old arctic wind

blew them off into a break-dancing

 

frenzy in mid-air: Fancy footwork,

disintegrating in wild

self-abandonment to the windswept sky--

 

scattered like brain-clouds

through January’s gray Mind

of trackless amplitudes.

 

FIFTIETH  ANNUAL

  

The dainty little goat

licks my hand as I stretch into her stall

to scratch behind her elegant ears:

 

I, who have been her father and mother,

sister and brother, lover and friend,

through all the twists and turns of Samsara.

 

She stands upon her hind legs.

I draw back my arm, pleased

at such rapport with the animal world.

 

From the corner of my eye a poster

warns the crowd at the County Fair:

“Wash your hands if you touch the livestock.”

 

WINTER SOLSTICE

  

Blue winter sunshine,

Brilliant, clear,

Marriage of heat and light,

Love and Wisdom,

Mine and Yours,

Carols of winterberry.

 

Leave it all alone:

The axe in the tool shed,

Ornaments in the attic,

The uncensored evergreen.

Worship in the wilderness,

Home where you belong.

 

Pines branching infinitely,

Bowing low with humility,

Hoary, ancient,

Crystalline, youthful:

Prisms twinkling

Music of fire and snow.

 

     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.