זה בסדר *

 It’s all right* — all of

it, is all right, rest your mind

don’t fear, it’s all right

what mystics know

 Sleep is not death not

metaphor not unconscious —

hushabye (good) night

now, what

 Then

Is when

Now is

Always

Becoming or

Become from

friday evening conversation

finger / moon

and all between

(taking no sides)

all in

a different way

 We might not be able to go home again.

Not the way we came.

…and returned to their own country by a different way. (Matt 2:12)

Spirituality has wiped its tracks from desert floor.

It’s tracts grown brittle and faded.

Pack your knapsack. Take water bottle. Set out.

There is no way to get where you wish to go.

It is a story waiting to be written. 

A walk through what appears at each step.

the view from withside — surrounding, quiet

 There’s nothing to see

No me other than this thought —

This alone, this is —

Once I disappear(s), empty

withsiding Itself

inching closer

Wiesel said God is

movement not explanation --

come with, disappear

into what is completely

obvious under your feet

what will show up, who will see it

Lines in stories have a way of standing out.

 “Five gunshots is four too many.” (-Billy, character in novel Billy Summers by Stephen King)

Even though the Catholics moved it to a Sunday,  the Epiphany will always be on the sixth of January, twelve days after Christmas. Not because of the song, but because I prefer some things stay as they’ve been, even though things seldom do.

This year epiphany marks one year anniversary of minor devils in Washington DC spewing bile and bedlam through doorways of US Capital Building covering American psyche with cobwebs of distortion and disgrace. The chief devil in long black overcoat and blood red tie, disgraced and deranged, now living in Florida like some escaped leader of a depleted looted government south of some border or lost in some middle Balkan territory.

He got away. He was able to rip open the chest of a femme fatale after raping and beating her with his charming and attractive hate presented with smiling good teeth and bouffant sprayed hair. She fell for him. They all did. He fu*ked them all and walked away with money and invincible lust and loyalty from his cool aide followers.

We were shown what we are in this devilish epiphany. He, the smiling destroyer, had found the knife in back of kitchen drawer and used it. His magnetic charism stood beside kneeling seppuku servants agog at his mesmerizing complaints, blade already slicing into soft belly of baseless belief staining red on white rug.

The other Epiphany, the fabled recounting of wise men coming upon a purported prince of peace in some out of the way shelter where shepherds and animals attended the dividing of history into two parts, that one, well, who knows what the real story is or what it means. 

Stories are funny like that. We think they’re over but they stay with you.

Like the guy in Florida. I don’t know what he means. But it’s nothing I care about. He’s someone not worth the trouble he causes. A nobody who did some disgusting things and doesn’t yet have one of those mugshots on a state website for sexual offenders or one of those morgue slab snaps after autopsy on some sad case going unclaimed to potter’s field.

Epiphany is day for gifts. Maybe he’ll give us one and go away, disappear into a haze of ambivalent narration as to the dirty deeds done and devastation left behind.

It’s hard to imagine how the constitution or the gospels have relevance today. They’re stories we tell to young minds along with tales of hobbits and wizards and Die Hard sequels and movies about asteroids and political capitalistic stupidity.

There are other stories, other treatises and tomes of careful diagnosis and scholarly discourse laying out theories and analyses confronting historical patterns or scientific investigation or literary interpretation intent on assisting the human student to modify myths or substantiate or de-fallow superstition leading to an enlightened awareness and beneficial future distanced from ignorance and insane inanity. But that’s a stretch. Something promised after tuition. 

Tomorrow in western rite is Epiphany.

What will be made manifest in our scarred  souls?

Or is that our scared souls?

Or unscoured soul. Or unsecured soul?

There’s still the attraction of the story of our sacred soul.

But that’s another think.

What’s holiness got to do with anything?

And who’s asking?

Really, who wants to know?

hand in all credentials, clear desk, look around

 As a mendicant —

Officially useless guy

I withdraw from view(s)

ensō anniversary

 He’s such a good dog —

One year with us, two cats

think he’s a rub-face

kwan seum bosal *

 Listening to psalms

sighting those that cannot see

none so more than me

...   ...   ...

* Kuan Seum Bosal, known as Avalokitesvara in Sanskrit, is the bodhisattva of compassion. Born from a ray of light emanating from Amita Bul's right eye, Kwan Seum Bosal assists those who request admittance to the Pure Land. Kwan Seum literally means "perceive world sound," which is also translated as "one who hears the cries of suffering."  

https://kwanumzen.org/teaching-library/2003/07/01/bodhisattvas

now that we are old and impatient

suddenly … saying

anything feels redundant

write it down … (shut up)

familiar virus spreads

 many worry for

democracy, lies now sold

by familiar names --

will truth be forgot as creeps

boldly fabricate with scorn

if you practice I practice

 See tree see you, no

distance, no time, no wrinkle —

start this new year there

nombre faltante encontrado

billy sends hafiz

above his solo name . . . I

wonder why joanne’s 

isn’t there . . . next day, looking —

tristeza — missing name found

...   ...   ...

(con amor, s&b)

einsiedler lieben es allein zu sein *

 A new year haiku followed by two asterisks:

this hermitage where

nothing else matters, blue gray

awareness dawning

….  …   …

* one:

hermits 

love 

to be 

alone

….  …   …

(A postscript:)

 ganz allein

ja

ganz allein

sogar mit

jemand

du liebst **

…   …   …

** two

All alone

Yes

all alone

even with

someone

you love