Plum Village (for Thay and his community)

shining dome
mauled bald by bears of woe
you've crawled so many miles
on so many knees
just to eat
rejection,
once, a thousand
countless times

the victory
is in the trying
it hasn't ceased
even as old age
and political cage
whitewash over
the Zen graffiti
you scrawled, so defiant,
so fearful that your efforts
would not relieve the slipping
of those you sacrificed
yourselves
to be

drizzle into puddle

drizzle into puddle
shaken surface reflecting
trees, sky
black bramble
and grey tumult

topple

when I no longer cling
want
depend
I will be lost
no longer blue
no longer seek
validation from you

and the feeling will arise
only to give
and bereft
I will no longer be
a being only for myself
but for others
here
where we all
have toppled

dictators
dethroned
unmasked
unknown

third snow

it does snow
oh, yes
it does
-- it was!
and will
and here we are
hive and honey warm
fires in furnaces
brandish our purchases
coffees
and pens
and notebooks
and lovers we've won
with sloppy smiles
and whimpering hearts

trying not is trying, too

Trying not
Is trying, too
If not it be
I stand by you

Your efforts wasted
Not or so
Yet something got
From aiming low

If joy not then
At least then grief
So terrible
And yet so deep

When once desire
To rise at all
So high aspire
From break, from fall

sitting in the booth behind the sweet lady who smells of mothballs

sausage omelet
yummy, indeed
waiting
between bites
naming
the things in my mind
in my heart
places
where I call myself out
hold myself accountable
pleading
with my mind
to quiet
to leave off
the anguish
however
costing far less
than all the waiting
and patience
will pay forward

early onset

my mental retention
getting so bad
anymore

images like bubbles
from the mouth
of a cosmic fish

I miss so much that rises
from the depths

immense
immense the possibilities
when I can let go the nitty details,
allow the essentials
to surface

hold only those
that strike the tinder
set my wires afire
resonate with those places
where I grow
so weary
so alive