there and gone

 Ran out, turned back

turned again in the road

Squirrel, runs under my tire

And thump, it, sadly, killed

trading in what isn't wanted

No need to break your bones.

Nor to worry which way to go.

What is at your feet should suffice. 

Sticks and Stones: Another Story About The Buddha

(--by Jack Myers)

A young man set out on a life-long journey to discover 

the secret of how best to live. Collecting sticks along the 

way

he traded them as kindling in return for a morsel of food 

and some advice on how to best live.

He collected baskets of stones, and to people’s delight, 

arranged them into graceful gardens of silence, 

asking only for food and advice on how best to live.

Wherever he went, he traded in what wasn’t wanted

for what went wanting, a stick for fire, a stone for prayer, 

while the things men said about the lives they lived, 

which led in all directions, allowed him to live many 

lives.

He learned that each man regretted the prospect of death, 

and thus, regretting how he lived, lived distressed by that 

dilemma.

And because the paths they tread were paved with 

complaints

no one could see how the young Buddha lived, 

by feeding sticks and stones to hunger. 

--Poetry (October 1997)

 If someone discards decency, pick it up.

If love is abandoned, take it in.

If wisdom is ignored, say hello.

We can live this way, learn from what has been tossed away, become grateful for what is found.

something's in the air

feeding livestock

sunflower seeds

cold morning

birds fly in

fly out

this aerial farm

with realization of thusness

 A theater piece in lower house with agonizing antagonists steely-jawed unwilling to cast their measly three votes for Geppetto’s boy on first vote for speaker of the house, third in line in presidential succession. Then time froze. Nothing moves. An hour passes.

Then mirabile dictu, the master’s voice, deus ex machina crawls through the ether up the east coast from paradise, saying to two of the holdouts— “this is my toady son, and you are vile nobodies, vote for him now or I will castrate you and toss you into the boiling sea.”

And going forward, it was done, and there was cheer and much rejoicing in the land of delusion and defilement. 

The spiritual light shines alone,

Far transcending the senses
And their fields;
The essential substance is exposed,
Real and eternal.
It is not contained in written words.
The nature of mind has no defilement;
It is basically perfect and complete in itself.
Just get rid of delusive attachments,
And merge with realization of thusness.

—Pai-chang (720–814) dailyzen

Dawn light gives shape to bare branches and treetop line looking east. 

The holiday season was spent reading, walking from front room to wohnkūche and back to feed cats and refill water bottle. Sitting in armchair at large window with brass cross hanging from hundred twenty five year old ceiling beam. Watching dawn morning star, dusk evening star and daylight birds, as trucks and cars traverse Barnestown road.

A shikantaza tilting compact recliner beside windowsill's altar where Buddha and Christ, Madonna and Child, original tree stump and single candle, complete the oratory of sona in situ — (sound in its original place), primum verbum in primo loco — (the first word in the first place).

Sacred word falls silently into what is being born.

All creation longs for true appearance.

Do you see that mirror reflection? 

Enter there!

sip of water

black watch cap on head

In this room without heat, eye-

drops, pill, chant, nod, sleep

walking in peace, he said

 In prison this morning we talked about there being no outside,

Only inside moving its edge further and further

(Ok, an admission, there is an outside)

It's what remains after love has exhausted itself

Source generates expanding energy

Movement is what God is

Hence there is nothing

Outside God

what did they think they were voting in

Yes

We’re in for

A rough ride

It will take

A little while

To overcome

But we will

We will…

Won’t we?

κενοτάφιο*

*cenotaph (plural cenotaphs) -- A monument, generally in the form of an empty tomb, erected to honour the dead whose bodies lie elsewhere, especially members of the armed forces who died in battle. 

I cannot find 

your body

It is gone --

only 

earth

cenotaph

where once 

you passed 

sanctus, sanatio, visio tota, visendus

The Tibetan lama points out buddhists see Buddha as teacher, not a god.

not God, not creator -- but teacher. You are your own master.

The christian monk furrows brow.

And I think -- after all these years it should not be disturbing that no 

creator, no God -- might be a reasonable way to look at things.

No judgment, no condemnation, no deus-ex-machina with rusty bolts.

Just learners, teachers, practitioners, experiencers, explorers, inquirers.

God has had a long run. No one understands why, if there is a God, so

many painful, unkind, thoughtless, violent atrocities occur in world.

No amount of rationalization and theologizing excuses the evil and suffering.

But if we were to think that God might be coming to be, if God is not yet, 

if semi-conscious beings were becoming more conscious, and thus less 

cruel -- perhaps there is hope for God.

The material universe and unfolding of possible manifestation of 

generous and loving way of being could be looming just over edge of 

emergence.

Until then, massacres, bombs, vehicular rundowns, 

assault weapon killings,

abusive men and abusive women, 

bullying and horrifying acts of crippling

vengeance, anger, and hostility -- these are what we have. 

Yes, we long for God, for creator, redemptive healing. These are buses 

slow to come.

What we have is the beating heart of humanity and natural world.

These heart/minds seeking safety and nurturance, continuation and 

thriving manifestations of nascent nature and possible maturation.

If you wish to say that this longing, this emerging desire to become what 

we might become --

energetic pulsation which could be called "creator/god" as it comes to be,

ok -- call it such. But we are not yet there. Nothing out here is capable 

of making the-loving-thing so attractive and compelling that a resonant 

YES would muffle

all the cacophonous NO acts and utterances experienced, and

shuddered under.

So...

let the teachers teach, meditators meditate, holy ones be holy, 

generous ones be generous, beatific ones be the beauty they see, 

the sanctity

they are becoming. 

Allow these to become what is possible to become. Choose real life.

Choose the good that beckons out from within. Choose to become

the God we once thought was already here. Not belief, but inner

urge to trust what we must become, to be what we are becoming: 

sanctus, sanatio, visio tota, visendus  -- 

holy, healing, full vision, to be seen

consonance

consonance (n.).      late 14c., "pleasing combination of sounds, harmony," from Old French consonance (12c.) "consonance, rhyme" and directly from Latin consonantia "harmony, agreement," from consonantem (nominative consonans) "agreeing in sound," present participle of consonare "to sound together, sound aloud" (see consonant (adj.)).  From early 15c. as "agreement among persons as to facts or opinions." Meaning "accord or agreement of sounds in words or syllables" is from 1580s.     (--online etymological dictionary)

67 says watch pulse

heart emojis flashing

I am technologically alive

light incense in chapel/zendo

buddha and kuanyin watch,

cross and virgin stay stoic

the big rain has stopped

cabin porch wet

rusted bell gives itself sound

Once I wanted to know --

now only to word breath

one consonant at a time

radical emergence, birds approaching feeder

 It is time for practice

Looking into what is here

Quietly, silently

If you love anything

Practice, practice, practice

Reveal what is true, here

yes, we’ll see

 It’s after midnight

It must be now new year’s

No, that was 24 hrs ago

When New Year’s Eve ended

No, really, then today is…

Yes today is the 2nd 

Then… i missed it?

Yes you did, miss it

Such a shame, i might have

Celebrated, made noise, sat zazen

Silly, silly me, i missed it

Yes you missed it

No going back, i suppose

No, no going back

Well then, onward, no time

To waste, we must prepare

For next year, next new year’s

I’ll be ready for it, just you see

flying out of sight

 I cannot settle on a book. The one on Deutsche Bank is too lugubrious in criminality and complicity to worldwide used viscous engine oil personality our next president.

The novel about a maine town crime does what many attempted reads do for me, remind me of arbitrariness of details to leave in or take out. 

The lady poet inserting into gentleman poet’s life felt too self absorbed and self referential. 

I settle on Colum McCann’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking.” 

(Silly statements on a Wednesday evening. Like all opinions, extraneous.)

facing the obvious

 Such an odd feast, Mary, Mother of God.

I admit to liking that God has a mother,

However poorly, at times, in the gospel, 

Jesus’ comments brushed passed her —

But more than that, the prospect that

The Creator had a mother, retroactive or

Rethought as it might have been, Mom,

Creating the Creator, speaking Logos

Into matter and language, nursing boo-boos,

Suckling the goo-goo intake of breast milk

la nostra mamma — our mother, hidden, humble,

Let down by eight billion offspring, and the 

ancestry of so many more who never called her

On weekends

Mary

Thank you

I’ve forgotten

Your face.

waiting sentence in the bull pen

1.

Reading about Lowell and Hochman

Meeting at Russian Tea Room

He is leaving his wife, he tells her

Walking, says he wants to marry her

He reads her “Brooklyn Bridge” on it

After Crane goes off stern into depths

2.

Watching DaVinci on PBS, the genius

Of it, how art breaks through, as

Lowell might compose a line of

Poetry out of mania and alcohol —

Book-worming on Marlborough his

Paean of West Street distress

3.

It is New Year’s Day, strawberry &

Blueberry pancakes, eggs and sausage

he went out and peed by lilac bush

 coffee brewed and

chocolate donut

from moody's diner

good enough start

to new year

cat on lap

dog

on

rug

now stretched on beige rug

Pouring rain

Ensō dog takes

two steps out

barn door, looks 

back, decides

he can wait

andiamo

Silly to say

goodbye to

year

Rather say

no to 

fear

no different than the tyrants of the past

 No sugarcoating what happened in 1890 at Wounded Knee.

[Charles] Eastman concluded that the men who had destroyed the Sioux economy talked a lot about Christianity, but their actions had nothing to do with that generous religion. “I have not yet seen the meek inherit the earth, or the peacemakers receive high honor,” he noted. “Why do we find so much evil and wickedness practiced by the nations composed of professedly ‘Christian’ individuals?” For all their noble talk, such men were no different than the tyrants of the past, eager to take everything for themselves. “The pages of history are full of licensed murder and the plundering of weaker and less developed peoples, and obviously the world to-day has not outgrown this system,” Eastman mused.75

In the end, the Sioux doctor condemned the America he knew. He had given up his traditional way of life for a promise of a better world in which individuals strove for the good of all. Instead he had found prejudice and butchery in the name of economic progress. Bitterly, he pronounced his judgment on the society that had promised so much and delivered so little: “Behind the material and intellectual splendor of our civilization, primitive savagery and cruelty and lust hold sway, undiminished, and as it seems, unheeded. When I reduce civilization to its lowest terms, it becomes a system of life based upon trade. The dollar is the measure of value, and might still spells right; otherwise, why war?”76

(—final words of Heather Cox Richardson’s “Wounded Knee, Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre, 2011)

No forgetting what we’ve become, turning into 2025. 

nίκο, βοήθησέ μας να ακούσουμε τη φωνή -- (nikos, help us hear the voice)

Here we have a valuable description of our spiritual situation at this time and turning of the year: 

 27. It is as though we had buried Someone we thought dead, and now hear him calling in the night: Help me! Heaving and panting, he raises the gravestone of our soul and body higher and still higher, breathing more freely at every moment.

(--Fourth Step, The Vision, in THE SAVIOURS OF GOD, Spiritual Exercises, by Nikos Kazantzakis, 1922/23 -- published 1927, Translated by Kimon Friar

Do we hear the calling?

Can we feel the gravestone being raised?

Are we breathing more freely? 

mary, are the kids ready to travel

bombing Gaza

bombing Ukraine

in other news

christian leaders

say Jesus Christ

will not be

appearing on any

new years eve shows

rather, will be

lamenting the world

he tried to save

covered in dust and blood

stumbling out the town

as warmongers praise his name

misericordia de la tierra y de todos los que habitan en ella

 Yes

I suspect a spree of assassinations will occur in the next few months..

Hate, when unleashed, goes in many directions.

My name is greed. My name is influence. My name is MAGA/DOGE

I suspect that there will be an outbreak of sanity and αγάπη (agape) in the next few months..

Love, when unfettered, circles the world with kindness and compassion.

Our name is lleno de dios. Our name is Sierva del bien, Siervo del bien.

World is paused, world is poised, world is civil twilight near dawn.

We, you, me — all will have to choose, all will be the chosen, no escape.

You will find me here. You may shoot me. I will fall to ground. Bleed out.

Be happy with your assassinations. Be content with self sacrifice. Dream.

It has come to this. I will be dead. And you, you are tomorrow.

Que Dios tenga misericordia de la tierra y de todos los que habitan en ella.

calling off search

 I cannot say i have found God

That is too far a shore

But i have found sleep

Prayer leads me there at night

As words and chant drift

Through my fading consciousness

God sleeps within consciousness

Please forgive my slumber

I cannot do other

a lonely trickle of water flows

The well-kept empty house across the road has two outdoor lights, one in front, one on side, twenty-four hours a day, unoccupied now almost two years, the owner regularly pulls in, goes in, confirms security, goes home next door, and the house keeps its counsel. 

Quietness dwells there.

We keep watch over it. Unofficially. I imagine an order of contemplative monastics keep their vocation in the gray monastery, keeping silence, chanting psalms, contemplating the inexerable emergence of holy writ, holy acts, holy mind.

 Evening mountains veiled in somber mist,

One path entering the wooded hill: 

 

The monk has gone off, securing his pine door. 

 

From a bamboo pipe a lonely trickle of water flows.

--Ishikawa Jozan (1583-1672) dialyzen

There are two earths.

One turns with financial wrangling, power generation, social experimentation, self-centered excess.

The alternate earth cultivates consciousness, looks into the unexamined, chooses silent colloquy with nothing there neither audiencing nor phoneticizing. 

It rains and drizzles all day. Foggy mist hangs between branches in lowering daylight. White truck and red car climb road towards Hope at top of hill. 

Suddenly, the lights on gray house are off. Nones is over and Vespers soon. Horarium is kept. The lights come back on. A signal of sorts to watchers.

There, lower right-center, just under neck of lamp, a single light, off across road, through drips and branches, as though some sanctuary light, the abode of stealth monastics in a dedicated yet desultory life of hidden prayer.

I can only sit here and glance.

I see no one.

No one sees me.

Neither cenobite nor eremite, just mysterious lights on fantastical monastery.

Keeping the hours.

Holding fast to the insubstantial soul.

Somber mist

Gone off

Lonely trickle

brail

 Yes

To what

I cannot

See 

Yes to 

All 

That

Is now 

Me

Yes to 

All 

Befuddling

Facts

The ways &

Acts of

All my

Kin

I’m willing 

To begin

Again to

Sinn

So needed

To regain

Yes, to

Sinn

To see

What actually

Is

Taking place

To feel

You there

To touch

Your face

looking both ways

 On this date in 1890, the massacre at Wounded Knee. The sorrow of it.

Today, the death of Jimmy Carter. The joy that such a decent man graced us.

The realization that this world we live in, this earth we live on, are both beyond comprehension — both the revelation of incomprehensibility.

yeah, its that kind of movie

 John McLane 

saves

Christmas again

phew

glad I got

to see it saved

again

the heart pulses on, developing a future -- froh and glücklich

From Merriam Webster: "Attacca" -- imperative verb, at· tac· ca əˈtäkə, -akə : attack at once  —used as a direction in music at the end of a movement to begin the next without pause. 

Attacca

--by Frank O’Hara

To take up where you left off!

without a breath of separation

your new movement is begun.

The heart pulses on, developing

a future. You do not rest

your lips, your ears, your fingers.

The field is full of daisies

and the sun is shining greenly.

It is a musical development,

taxing and inspired, before

the old love has echoed away.

To the eager suggestion of a new

face. It will be a great movement!

begun warmly and without a pause.

You have carried yourself to a new

world, put off the final applause. 

 

--From issue no. 79, The Paris Review, (Spring 1977)

 There is no recognizing the transition as listener. Only the conductor manages the slide through.

As in moment to moment so too from this life to whatever is beyond this life, attacca, no pause, no recognition one thing has ended another begun.

I fall asleep. I awake. It is a blink. Cat arrives on chest. Light through fog behind branches from road outside window. Hours later, it is noon. I will fetch another coffee. 

French nuns from Neumz allow free listen to their Gregorian chants of final Sunday liturgy. Credo plays. 

Are we moving through the shadowy end of something unbelievable? Is there a slide into a new time a new year? Will it be Einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr!

O'Hara says for us:

It will be a great movement!

begun warmly and without a pause.

You have carried yourself to a new

world, put off the final applause. 

That sudden silence.

What will follow? 

unproctored examination

Asked

How to find God

Say

Don’t know

For extra credit

Sit down

Eyes four feet

Shuttering ground

If after twenty

Fifty minutes

You think I’ll 

Ask again, don’t —

In another room

Water, sip, don’t think

Look — (congratulations)

Cum laude, sic

vel 

graduale 

sive

subito