go on, ask

 There is suffering

in life, hurt, disappointment —

How we think of God

Is how we think each other

So ask yourself, who is God

unfathomable jaunt there to here

 I used to think God

was all there was. Now I think

God is all here is

follow the thread

 Doc says: sure I’ll cut

you open, sew some stuff, stitch

you up, send you home

sudden breeze through window

 You cannot give me your death.

O Lord, give everyone his own death, 

A death stemming from his own life. 

—Rainer Marie Rilke

Nor I give you mine. 

Here’s to your own!

because I was looking

 hummingbird hovers

at emergency room door

left right up down leaves

sanus, sana, sanum

 What keeps me sane? No-

thing. There is no sanity —

We have gone insane

komusō*

*Priest of nothingness, monk of emptiness. 

This komusō within which and wherein I stand and walk and sip my coffee.

Practicing suizen, blowing air through this physical shakuhachi of lungs and nose, throat and hara.

Jewelweed crop is plentiful. Bees attend their morning liturgy. Sacred buzz-chant ripples out from their offices. An undulating eucharist, as if open field hesychasm in mid-august creating new welcome to all who've abandoned their formal churches for deeper elevations of dirt and soil and earthen resurrection.  

Topsoil gives grass, wildflowers, worms, ants, small frogs and crawling caterpillars. 

 "God is a dirt farmer, not a garden cultivator." (David Roberts, Patheos)

There are days when all man-made creations feel shallow and fallow. Machines, banking systems, automatic weapons, fighter jets, bombers, lawn mowers, cars and trucks, stock markets, public relations firms, cable news outlets, glocks, clocks, and conference rooms.

Then there are days when being a komusō with repetitive om mani padme hum on fingered beads as sole companion feels good enough for now.

Monastic of no other.

Priest of nothingness.

Monk of emptiness.

Hanger of laundry on sunporch.

Feeder of cats in their separate quarters.

Washer of dishes.

mendicant crown beads

origin beckons

destination dwelling home

middle — step by step

dory dockside ritual

 penny placed on thwart

under securing line draped

over gunnel green

looking at us

 Bush, Obama, Trump, 

Biden — Afghanistan, war —

This time so awful

literature

 Finished Jayber Crow —

Wendell Berry from ground up

Feeling full feeling

unsatisfying exchange

 War is when we fail

Talking with each other, set

Down words, take up pain

in and out and back

 Pray if you got ‘em!

Military personnel 

Take a break broken

losing twenty year war

 “Afghanistan is at the end of nowhere.” 

       (Retired General Barry McCaffrey on MSNBC re: the ability of  US sympathizing Afghans to flee the Taliban today overrunning Kabul as compared to Vietnamese fleeing Saigon by sea in 1975)

an uncaptured eventuality

Thought is, as yet, elusive.  

 

 They’re alone at the fountain, in a dark well.

They’ve been exiled by the world of hope,

which is the world of action,

but the world of thought hasn’t as yet opened to them.

When it does, everything will change.

(—Excerpt from: "A Village Life: Poems" by Louise Glück. Scribd)

 

For us, to think, is to become an uncaptured eventuality lingering just outside the circumference of campfire light in a dark unseeing that nears and enthralls.

regaled and astonished by the possible in our surround and imagination.

The astrophysicist gives the example of an ant watching a sheet of paper disappear.

It had been on a two dimension surface of desk when a human lifted it up to be placed into a third dimension paper holder extending upward from the desk. To the ant it simply disappears, having no reference to a height in its length and width world.

Today is the feast of the Assumption of Mary into “heaven.”

Not even time, the fourth dimension, comes close to explaining her disappearance into some heavenly dimension we have no capacity to detect or understand.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, like some modern day evangelist for planetary scientific description, tells us about the universe with grace, wit, and clear examples, enjoying the story-telling and narrative excitement of emerging human knowledge and discovery.

Today we say Hello Mary in a new way.

The world has not yet yielded, with grace and wit, all its theoretical manifestations and dimensional mysteries.

And yet, here we remain, regaled and astonished by the possible in our surround and imagination.

post tenebras (after concealment)

 Mary, so

ordinary 

Held what

we are

Not yet

able to

Imagine —

Her origin

eternal now

and

completion

at once

Come

to light

why there is waiting in emergency department

 You hurt

Are worried

How serious

Is this

“Have a seat, 

Nurse triage

Will be soon

With you”

Then you wait

Some two minutes

Some 30

Feeling a lifetime

Here is where

Practice begins

You cannot help

Looking around

Others nearby

Also waiting

Uncertain, afraid

Inventorying

Do you feel

For them

Wish silently

Them well

Pray for

Them

If you do

Your practice 

Has begun

is ripe

Here’s the secret —

We pray for 

One-another

Because we are

One-another

A practice worth

Becoming

A becoming 

Worth 

Being

Let’s

Emerge

There

Here

facts

 Yes

We will all die

By virus

Or vaccine

Fire, cancer

Old age or

Car crash

We will

All die —

(Be of

Good

Cheer)

Now, then

What else 

Shall we

Talk about

if yes, then no

 Do I have faith? Is

What is happening good, true?

Do I dare affirm?