Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage

Prompt:

Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage
by Sekito Kisen

I've built a grass hut where there's nothing of value.
After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.

When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared.
Now it's been lived in—covered by weeds.

The person in the hut lives here calmly,
not stuck to inside, outside, or in-between.

Places worldly people live, he doesn't live.
Realms worldly people love, he doesn't love.

Though the hut is small, it includes the entire world.
In ten feet square, an old man illumines forms and their nature.

A Mahayana bodhisattva trusts without doubt.
The middling or lowly can't help wondering;

Will this hut perish or not?
Perishable or not, the original master is present,

Not dwelling south or north, east or west.
Firmly based on steadiness, it can't be surpassed.

A shining window below the green pines—
jade palaces or vermilion towers can't compare with it.

Just sitting with head covered all things are at rest.
Thus, this mountain monk doesn't understand at all.

Living here he no longer works to get free.
Who would proudly arrange seats, trying to entice guests?

Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can't be faced or turned away from.

Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instructions,
bind grasses to build a hut, and don't give up.

Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.
Open your hands and walk, innocent.

Thousands of words, myriad interpretations,
are only to free you from obstructions.

If you want to know the undying person in the hut,
don't separate from this skin bag here and now.

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One-pointed.
  a vaporous silence, as
  compared to a sharp and alert stillness
  ... teeming with knowing ...
  with an indescribable wisdom ...

Who would proudly arrange seats?
  There are no others ...
  And who would not go mad
  forgetting, and ... remembering?

Change, as all things do, ...
  a castle of sand, but still
  a castle ... and still sand
  ... from rocks, barely cool ...

Who would stray from the ocean,
  never to return?
Probability indicates that return is likely
  ... no, wait ... inevitable ...

But, what joy of knowing a hundred thousand forms
  unlike the ocean ...

A squirrel crosses the road, looking
  both ways, and flicking its tail in an undulating
  fashion, sweeping subtle particles to & fro,
  creating swirls of warm & warmer air above
  the asphalt ... and hops into the dry and rustling weeds ...

The wooden table of now,
  and vibrations of a brushed steel spoon
  against glazed pottery,
  and the slurping of soup ...

Are the most and least at the same time,
  precious and fleeting,
  and the soft light casting shadows ... worth noting ...
  ... creating a small echo in the conceptual mind ...

Who would write this down?


— Lucy L.

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— Kim Mosley

Sick

— Kim Mosley

My Life as a Duck

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My Life as a Duck

Walking, walking, walking ...
  my little wet feet splat on the surface of the ground as it goes from muddy to dry and back ... my tail wiggles as I waddle curiously on dry land,
  and I note how this small back & forth movement seems kin to the soft up & down on the water ...

Moving, moving, moving ...
  my bouncy little mind splats and taps on the sensations of subjects that flit in and out of view ... my facial muscles move and limbs twitch involuntarily in response to the ebb & the flow ... and I note, curiously, the joy of this ride,
  and its perplexing relationship to the space in between its movements ...

What is happening between each squelch in the mud?

  Hmm ... something about water ...
and a drop realizing it is in the ocean, and it is also the ocean ... ?
Can a feather on a duck realize it's true nature?

— Lucy L.

Einstein letters

Prompt: 

Dear Mileva,
I’m sorry I said everything is relative last night. Of course our love isn’t. I just got a little carried away. It won’t happen again.
Sincerely Yours,
Albert Einstein

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Bern, 1905 Dear Albert, Your apology is very thoughtful, and the flowers you set out for me as you left for Bern this morning were breathtaking. That said, Hans and Susana from across the street were in a fight last week, and to apologize, he made her breakfast in bed. So, relatively speaking, you’ve got some ground to cover. Warmly, Mileva Bern, 1905 Dearest Mileva, You’re a clever one. It’s that wit of yours I fell in love with. However, I must inform you that I spoke with Hans, and I have learned that his transgression far surpassed my own. I don’t want to tell tales outside of school, as it were, so I can’t share the details, but as we both know, a punishment must fit the crime. Relatively speaking, a very thoughtful note & breathtaking flowers should do the trick. With Love, Albert Bern, 1905 My Albert, Nice try. Susana told me last week that Hans forgot their anniversary. You may see this slip-up as far worse than yours, but in actuality it is quite understandable considering his Alzheimer's, and it is hardly an affront to their love. Try again. Lovingly, Mileva Bern, 1905 Sweet Mileva, Fine, my dear. For you, the world. I will meet you at home tonight at 7:00; dress for an opulent New Year’s Eve, and be prepared not to return home until quite late! Forever Yours, Albert Zurich, 1906 You have gone too far, Albert! I am sick of your relativity being an excuse! The fact that you are generally sleeping by 8:00 does not make 10:15 “quite late,” especially not on New Year’s Eve! You are treading on thin ice. I will be staying here with my sister in Zurich until you warm up. Regards, Mileva Bern, 1906 Mileva, Love of my life, apple of my eye; I cannot sleep, I cannot eat! How I’ve mistreated you is unacceptable and I will make the world right. I have commissioned us a portrait, which should arrive in the coming days. I hope this token reminds you of the man you once loved, and of the man you still love. Albert Zurich, 1906 Oh, Albert! What a marvelous gesture! I can’t wait to see the image you picked. One from our wedding day perhaps? You never cease to dazzle me. I will be home as soon as I can! In love, Mileva Bern, 1906 Mileva, Albert — Andy Bernstein

—Sarah Webb

What the Living Do

Prompt:

What the Living Do

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living. I remember you.


— Marie Howe

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     How It Ends

The crusty dishes have piled up,
rear ending a clogged sink and each other.
There is a steady stream
speeding off the dining table, expecting
to be quickly rinsed and parked
in the dishwasher until a full load.

This is the way it happens, the stream
of dishes, of letters to write, of chores to do,
of errands to run stream forward
like highway traffic until
a fog bank, a car spinning on its blown tire,
something stops the flow, hard.
The dishes clog the drain board.
The work clogs the in-basket.
Absence fills the in-box.
Life's expectations are not met
in an ER waiting room.

—Jeffrey Taylor

Nicknames

Prompt:

"At present our only true names are nicknames"
—Henry David Thoreau, Walking

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It’s funny, when you’re in a moment, you can hardly feel there. And it’s funny how years later it can feel so real. Sure, we are always at present, but

tell that to the scent from the store you’re passing. Next thing you know you’re two blocks past your car because what does that smell remind you of? Oh, shit, yeah! It’s summer vacation in New Hampshire and White Mountain Bagels in the morning and hiking along humming rivers and swimming in biting cold water and family rummy tournaments and dad’s drunk and mom’s laughing at him and there’s no bedtime and every meal’s on the grill but who were you then?

tell it to the classroom door that slams down the hall in just that way your mom used to do when you were still too young to know why. All of a sudden your legs are numb from sitting on the toilet too long but you don’t want to leave the stall because some deep, deep part of your lizard brain feels like hiding under the blankets. You’re not even on a phone or reading Sports Illustrated, you just hear muffled yelling and back and forth stomping and a garage door opening and a car driving down the hill. And whichever parent didn’t storm out this time comes upstairs to comfort you like it’s gonna help at all, but really it’s just the school nurse poking her head in the bathroom to see if you’re ok, like it’s gonna help at all. But who were you, then?

tell it to the diet Pepsi someone spilled on the ground in this cinema that you squished your sneaker through. The sticky residue followed you fifteen feet to your seat and even though it feels like you just sat down you missed the previews cause you‘re back in a frat house basement with too many people listening to music too loud way too late at night to do any good for anyone and your visions fuzzy and your friends are missing and some upperclassman is making a face at you like he wants to fight or fuck or both and you just want to fit in but who were you then?

maybe, just maybe, tell it to the soft smell of incense and the feeling of tea warmth under your chin that brings you right into this place and this room and this moment and ask yourself, who am I now?

—Andy Bernstein

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The Question

Prompt:

Write about a question that you think you don't have the answer for.


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Lost

Prompt:

“Lost really has two disparate meanings. Losing things is about the familiar falling away, getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing.”

— Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

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Giving Is the Best Communication

Video prompt:

Giving is the best communication

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Martha's Birthday Poem: 69

Martha Koock Ward posting her poem, musing about her birthday today.... How do you feel about how you are aging?

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69
Finishing off this 6th decade
Like that last bite of cake, or
Downing a draught of cool
Water, my thirst to slake, gives
Me such a sense of satisfaction
To feel both the time & the endless
Measures of help, I’ve been given to heal.
Legions of persons have lain on
Hands, touched my heart, willing,
Praying, and way-showing me to
Wholeness sought, promised from my,
Sometimes deranged & disparate parts.
I see that so many landmarks are gone,
Family relations, friends, leaders of nations,
And, strangers, who dressed this stage.
I am grateful for each known, or not,
As I await my next entrance,
I am very curious about the plot.

— Martha Koock Ward

Happy are They

Prompt:

Happy are they who still love something they loved in the nursery:
They have not been broken in two by time; they are not two persons,
but one, and they have saved not only their souls but their lives.

— G. K. Chesterton

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Hurricane Harvey

Prompt:

This poem by a student of Gaelyn Godwin Roshi, resident teacher at the Houston Zen Center. It's the perfect "instruction" on how to pray for Houston.

Hurricane Harvey

if you want
to pray for Houston you have to pray
in her way
pray like Beyoncé when she was
at HSPVA
or Billy and Dusty shooting pool
at Rudyard's
pray like you're sitting over soup
at Spanish Flowers
or pho at Mai's steaming your glasses
pray like the kids playing soccer
on the east side
or mutton busting
at the livestock show
pray like the runners
in Memorial Park
lacing them up
or the researchers
in the medical center looking into microscopes
if you want
to pray for Houston you have to pray
as quietly as
the Rothko Chapel
or Houston Zen Center
and you have to pray as loudly as
the old scoreboard at the Astrodome after a José Cruz home run
you have to pray sitting under
a live oak tree
or standing next to an azalea bloom while your skin clams in the heat
if you want to pray
for Houston
you have to pray without pretense
this ain't Dallas
and in a neighborly way as friends come out
to check on each other in the rain
and those
who are far away watch screens
and wipe our eyes
if you want to pray
for Houston
raise a bottle of Shiner to the gray sky
and say that 130 mile an hour winds and 9 trillion gallons of rain
are no match
for a city of such life
and diversity
you can fill up our bayou but you will never rain on our parade

Jeremy Rutledge 2017
Hurricane Harvey

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I do pray for things. Not very often. And only when my resources are depleted. So I'm waiting for the results of a test. I pray. I guess Kevin, with his doctorate in the philosophy of probability, would say that I'm intuitively calculating the odds that I have some incurable disease, and I have  figured that there is a chance, if only remote. I'm not sure if my kids or my wife knows that I do this. (I just asked my wife and my son, and they both said I didn’t pray.) They must just think that I'm blessed and that's why things generally turn out so well. Or maybe, Janelle, our class minister, might say, that I'm blessed because I do pray. I never told my parents, either. And now it is a little late, unless I'm mistaken about the power of their remains.

I guess I could pray for the people in Houston. Or at least I could feel guilty for not doing so. I knew a woman who was recovering from an illness. She went to a weekly prayer group, and they all prayed for one another. Against all odds, she is still around 25 years later.

Once in college I was really worried about something and I went to a church that was open 24/7. I put $5 in the box on the wall. Lo and behold, an intervention occurred and things turned out well. So I went back to the church and retrieved my money.

This would be more understandable if things had turned out the way I didn't want them to turn out. Then I could rationalize that I had wasted my money so it was ok to retrieve it. And maybe it did do good.

So I've heard a couple of things this week about karma that were new to me. One is that karma is not action, but rather intention. So my intention was good, perhaps, to put the money in the box at the church. But maybe not so good to take it out.

The second idea about karma is one that I had read just an hour ago. And it slipped my mind when I wrote the last paragraph. It said that the rational mind shouldn't try to understand the relationship of karma and action. The effects of karma are not comprehensible. In the article I was reading, it said that karma is mystery. We don't know the effect of our intentions.

Prayer? I'll continue to pray. Will I believe it will make a difference? Some part of me probably will because otherwise I wouldn't do it. But another part thinks it is silly. So let's keep my praying as a secret between us. OK?

—Kim Mosley

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If You Want To Pray For Houston


My brother wrote today.
The epicenter of deep water
Was three blocks from
Where we once lived.

He shuddered to think, he wrote.
Was his shudder a prayer?
Parkplace: simple, quiet, just barely middle class.

I remember the Irish (almost certainly Catholic)
Policeman who walked us
Across the busy intersection to school.
Is it underwater now?

The reservoir overflowed today
And a certain measure of water
Let out into the flooded streets
Built when I was 2
The year before my brother was born.

Infrastructure spending was not a sin then.
FDR was in the White House.
Laboratory grade fluoride was in our water
To protect children's teeth
All the children's teeth.

Joel Olsteen thinks Jesus will fix it
And does not want to open
His palacial megaplex
To the little soccer playing kids
From the east side.

As quiet as Rothko Chapel
The prayer of silence
Like researchers looking into microscopes
You must be very still and listen
To learn from looking into microscopes.

My brother wrote today.
He shuddered to think, he wrote.
The great infrastructure project
Designed to protect Houston
Was built before he was born.
My brother is 75.

Houston was just over half-a-million people then.
Today - 6 million 5
Minus those who drowned.

I sit in silence
As quiet as Rothko Chapel.
I shudder to think.
It is my prayer.

— Jamelle Curlin-Taylor