after gust

The good thing

about rain is

there’s ground

to receive it

poems don’t need much, space

 Two by Antonio Porchia:

• 
  

We don’t forgive being as we are.

• 
  

Don’t speak to me. I want to be with you.

from “Voices”
BY ANTONIO PORCHIA
TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH BY GONZALO MELCHOR      
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/55415

ticks

An infestation.

Who needs to worry about the enemies we make in Middle East,

Our dogs and cats are smuggling in a fierce ravager every hour.

We are bitten.

We become infected.

19th/20th

In a quiet hospital room

seventeen years ago

How deeply we shared

this night

How fond

we remain

ne rien, mon frere

The hermit in the attic signing belongs to the French Cistercian Trappists in Bianco's book Voices of Silence (1991).

Today he visits in description this quiet porch as night rain gives way to sun through colored autumn leaves.

This is not that.

Nor that this.

This is this.

And that's that.

Don't mention it, brother.

someone wrote and mentioned faith

I respond:

If there's anything I am "sure" about is that kindness, compassion, and conversation surrounding authentic inquiry will serve well those participating. 

That might be the definition of faith I work with.

And even if I doubted an endgame benefit to such a practice, I still find the shared inquiry worth engaging in.

Like the sitting practice of shikantaza, just sitting, just doing it, is well enough alone.

Veux-tu danser avec moi ?

           Every            

            

            Child

     Has known God,

Not the God of names,

Not the God of don'ts,

Not the God who never does

      Anything weird,

But the God who only knows four words

and keeps repeating them, saying;

Come dance with me

        Come

       Dance

(--Hafiz)

teisho

za-

zen

sits

alone

alongside

no one

else

saying

nothing

sometimes something shortens itself

wind

rustles

leaves

tell me about your mother

If everything mothers everything, is there anything not mother?

Mer, mère,  mare, Mary. 

Sea, moving in and out of itself.

Mother.

Everything moves in and out of everything else.

Honor your mother.

And your father.

There, that's covered.