This is the way a life is is finished, not with a ribbon, but with sandpaper.
All the untidy activity continues,
awful but cheerful.
(ending of poem “The Bight” by Elizabeth Bishop)
The suddenness of unexpected concluding completeness.
Saturday, June 24, 2023
untidy activity
a savage servility / slides by on grease.
You might love Robert Lowell’s poetry, and be right to do so, but you will come away with paper cuts from the reading.
Colonel Shaw
is riding on his bubble,
he waits
for the blessèd break.
The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease.
(From Life Studies and For the Union Dead by Robert Lowell, c.1964)
Still, such temporary annoyance abates as rain of an afternoon is no inconvenience, just good reason to read and nap and drink down leftover water in Bolthouse juice containers from suppers gone by across from Bald Mountain this third day of summer.
ante fáciem
Communio
Tu, puer, prophéta Altíssimi vocáberis :
You, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High.
præíbis enim ante fáciem Dómini
For you will go before the Lord:
paráre vias ejus.
to prepare his ways.
ipse dixit
Christ
Is emerging
As poetry
Is being written
If you are
Religious
Word is yours
If you
Are poet
World
Comes to
Be
there was a guy
born, baptizer, be-
headed — someone else, strange birth,
Preaching prophet cruc-
ified— the two of them as
one story, one telling, one
circling movement enormous nothingness
Saturday morning
practice, cat kneads claws sharp edged
I place blanket shield
Once there was formal rubric
Now cosmos within cosmos
Friday, June 23, 2023
allow to be transformed
In prison this morning, some words about source. As ever-present. If we wish to step into it.
As we surrender, we offer the whole of our life to the process of awakening. “In order to benefit sentient beings,” writes Pabongka Rinpoche in the Heruka Sadhana, “I offer myself immediately to all the Buddhas.” We offer ourselves as a vehicle for our Buddha-nature to manifest in the world for the welfare of others. We allow ourselves to be transformed. With this heartfelt attitude, one prostration performed at the right moment can touch us as deeply as one hundred thousand done without such commitment. (—Rob Pierce, Tricycle, The Solace of Surrender, spring 2007)
Consciousness seeks grounding and expression.
We are the means.
The way for source to become voice.
Thursday, June 22, 2023
brother can you spare a dim(e)wit
I watched the Republican congress censure Rep Adam Schiff (D.CA) for doing his job.
I watched former Justice Department special counsel John Durham testify before the Republican led judiciary committee which had trouble identifying their vacuity and the substance-less accounting of the four year investigation and report of Durham's efforts.
“ If honor were profitable, everybody would be honorable.” (Sir Thomas More, 1478-1535)
I'd drop a dime on these Republicans, but there's no place to call and nothing to report that anyone would believe.
“God made the angels to show Him splendor, as He made animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But Man He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of his mind.” ― Sir Thomas More, in Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons)
A mind is
a terrible thing,
(to wit),
to waste.
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
ten cuidado
prison cannot
enclose someone free
like insanity, complaint
of the insincere
I will fu*k you up, he
says, to no one
listening
no one cares
in an afternoon
patterned with no
keepable
promise
come si dice, what is, itself
as you think
so you are
don't think
you're not
see clearly --
there you are
where?
present
love, come si dice,
present(s) itself
dust your self off
A theological summation of wisdom applicable for individual and communal practice in an inter-religious or pan-agnostic context suitable to encourage unity and concentration of meaningful focus and pragmatic action in a dark time or lonely stretch, namely:
Pick yourself up
Take a deep breath
Dust yourself off
Start all over again
Perhaps a poster of these fragments could be hung on the wall where any prie-dieu or zafu resides.
“( pick yourself up, by Nat King Cole)” by Nat King Cole was written by Jerome Kern & Dorothy Fields. https://genius.com/Nat-king-cole-pick-yourself-up-lyrics
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
waiting
I keep waiting for the news people to say that the titanic submersible has been observed, approached, and unsealed, finding all aboard a bit shaken, but alive and happy to be found.
It’s hard to dance with my shadow in the yard on new moon with barn-light off.
a correlational unearthing of an old misreading
If you love me, keep
My correspondences as
They are all I am
Monday, June 19, 2023
then it was time for lunch
In prison today
Talk that being uncertain
Re poetry is
No reason to dislike it —
Inmate stared, and the mic dropped
let it be heard — the ayes of texas are upon you
Waiting a long time
To hear what each really is —
Free and loved, yes, free
Sunday, June 18, 2023
unshadow unboxing
I glance at a crucifix.
And wonder why I cannot understand it.
It occurs to me: Is it saying --
Get off there!
Get down from there!
Get on with it!
Perhaps it has been mistaken to admire the corpus on the crucifix -- mistaken to think "Oh, thank you for suffering and dying for me!"
Rather, the cross is only an instant of realization of wrong.
It is saying: "That's wrong!"
It is saying: "Get down from there, get it right next time!"
Get off there!
Get down from there!
Get on with it!
Once we see the shadow, once we become conscious of what we've feared and denied, we can get down, embody the realization, resurrect our true nature, and ascend to new expressions of spirit, freedom, wisdom, and community.
Yes, to get on with it
as my father would have composed
This morning,
Incoming text:
Happy Father’s Day!
Return text:
You're just saying that because I'm your father.
Were that not so, you would be thinking: "hmm, I wonder if there's someone in Maine who, in a different life, I'd be sending a text saying 'happy father's day' and who would pose a hypothetical about finding me as a swaddling on the shore of the Hudson River in early September with note pinned to vest 'he was born on aug 31 on a visiting cylinder crossing your solar system and we had no baby formula so he was placed in the River because we think he is one of your species.'"
Your mom wanted to trade you in for a spinach salad, but I wanted a French cruller. We flipped a coin, but it fell into the River where a striped bass swallowed it. So we decided to take you home.
Thanks for the happy Father's Day!
o my loves
Recalling this:
A Sweetness Appears and Prevails
By Terrance KeenanParting words by Terrance Keenan
to get up in the morning
is because of everything;
is because there is another arithmetic
without internal sense
and we ache at the borders;
is because the grey music
of the first chickadee before dawn
in the hemlocks
is the grinding engines of the humpyard
carried on morning air;
is because we are afraid
and know everyone is afraid
and do not know
who will soothe our tears
nor how many tears
we will hold unshed.
You seem to be you
and I seem to be me.
My sorrows are no greater
than your sorrows.
Thou art beautiful,
o my loves,
as tears are.
is a Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest, is an Irish artist and writer. From Zen Encounters with Loneliness, by Terrance Keenan.
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