This morning
I felt strong and jaunty in my
mail order Israeli commando trousers.
Up at Hard Luck Ranch I spoke to the ravens
in baritone, fed the cats with manly gestures. Acacia
thorns can’t penetrate these mighty pants, then
out by the corral the infant pup began to
weep, abandoned. In an instant
I became another of the
Earth’s billion sad
mothers.
On
a way that
wasn’t a way I came
to a makeshift bridge of rotten
planks. I looked in my sack. There was
not even a cowry shell. What
shall I give to get
across?
I
went a way
that wasn’t a way. On the
dangerous embankment of my mind
I looked in my sack but could not
find the Name of God. What
do I give to get
across?
On
the road to
realization you will
will often be thought crazy.
At times you may actually be
crazy. Both phenomena are
best endured with
stillness and
humor.
You
can now buy
Wei wu Wei Ching as part of a
five-app bundle of Taoist classics
for iPhone or iPad for less than
the cost of one hardcover
book.
Look, look,
how I nourish this
phoenix mind of mine:
swallows, sparrows, pigeons,
crows, all birds are welcome here.
Rinzai planted pine, Ikkyü cultivates
bamboo — later generations will
praise us for really doing
something.
At first
it isn’t so bad —
a taste of ecstasy, the world
covered in honey. Even snails scrawl
the names of buddhas with
their silvery
trails.
But then,
too much. Pears become
unbearable, wet white flesh so tender
one could perish contemplating
the first taste.
Meditation
becomes oddly redundant,
attention now like water, absorbed in tree root,
plumbing; even fire hydrants with their red
stubby arms become mandalas, and,
worse, the police siren revving its
wail behind my slow-moving
car sounds like a
mantra.
Even my
wife’s complaints about me
finally sound true. I just bow.
Kiss her slender hands.
Carry the garbage
outside, but,
damn! The
moon!
