•
A Diminished Marginal Propensity to Mourn
celebratory verses
Day turns to
Night turns to
Day’s turn!
Night’s turn!
Day’s turn!
Night’s turn!
Wow
*
Fluttering leaves have long
Since…
Fluttering leaves have long
Ceased…
Fluttering leaves have long
Longed to flutter longer
Under drifted snow they
Merely crisply
Ah! Could I but too!
*
Seasoned surviving senior scion
Surreptitiously sublimates
Subterranean surges
Sheesh!
*
We mostly miss the missing
Missing the presence of the present
Presents a more mystifying missingness
Missing me missing you missing me
*
Worn out
Worn down
Worn in
Worn on
Worn through
Worn beyond
Recognition!
*
Sunbeams
Promise
Transcendence
When? When?
I await
*
Economies of scale
Economies of wrinkles
Economies of ligaments
Connective tissues
Gesundheit
*
Like my breath
Passing over the candle flame
Lives loves legacy
Lithesome lessons
What counts
Is not counting
*
Happy you
Happy you
Happy dear you
Happy you
•
South Florida Zen Group Fifteenth Anniversary Poem
Host and guest
Breathe the same air
Walk the same earth
In their own shoes
One size fits one
No size fits all
Originally no movement
Inside, everyone
Wiggles their own toes
In the land of perpetual
Mangoes and alligators
Only one question
How has it lasted
Fifteen years?
Those who walk
The path together
Understand
Breakfast
Kimchee and oatmeal
Lunch
Seaweed soup
Kam Sa Ham Ni Da
Song Bul Ha Ship Shi Yo*
*”Thank you very much. May you become Buddha.”
•
Witnesses
written during a moderated discussion with
African writers at the Bronx Museum
Old bones
Travel far
Encased in
Skin whose
Changes all
Can see
Whereas
The testimony
Of the bones
Themselves
Speak in voices
Only heard
Within the skin
Once was a woman blessed
With the curse
Of forgetting
Every morning
All that had transpired
In her days and years
Which ended just
The night before
With nothing
Left to witness
Any longer
Than the very
Day’s events
While the present
Elders cursed
With the blessing
Of recalling
All the moments
The light
On the dust
Through the leaves
The silent cries
________________________
Woodfish, Spring 2015
On Magic, Attachments, and Righteous Indignation by Zen Master Wu Kwang
