Bad

 

— Kim Mosley

Possibilities

Beneath the evening’s veil of hazy twilight

lies a world of contradictions,

yin and yang, in circling harmony,

constantly changing, rearranging

lives with hardly any notice.

It doesn’t take much to see it, only awareness,

awareness that anything is possible,

that there truly are blue birds with red breasts

and a yellow beak,

that fairies with small gossamer wings

dart from one flower to another,

replenishing each with sweet nectar

for the bees to make their honey,

for the hummingbirds to hum.

It’s not hard to see beneath the veil.

It only requires us to remember

the child within us when make-believe

was real, when truth be told was still relevant.

—Paul Causey

Stone Knows

stone

knows its place 

in dark, in sun

everywhere

still,

it lets things move

jackrabbit blurs

so fast, stone doesn't see him

men can join stone to stone

stack a wall, set a path

walls fall and paths tilt

but stone is willing

what does it matter 

this fleeting touch?

—Sarah Webb

Contemplation on Depth in Practice Reading

I love the description of Buddha fields in tonight’s reading, of each of us as the cultivator and cultivated, each as teacher and facilitator to the other.

I love the vision of Buddha fields that these reading holds, as both internal and external, as  both specific to one and at the same time expansive & indistinguishably interconnected with all buddha fields.

And how this reading is, as our practice is, a poetic reminder of the interwovenness of all things, all moments, all activity, be they our thoughts and actions or those happening around us.  And a further reminder of how the teachings, although limited by mere words, weave into our bodies, minds, and emotions, and soften our limited notions, much like a basket weaver softens grapevine and reshapes each part of the vine into a new creation with each part intersecting, overlapping, intertwined, and indiscernible as separate from all other parts. 

I so love how the teachings and our practice re-form us, much like the grapevine is reshaped, softening and inter-weaving us with the lives of others to co-create a life of less suffering for ourselves, for each other, for all.

—Nelda Adamson

It’s About the Journey

It’s about the journey, 

I get told, not the destination.

Three dogs later I wonder

which of the dogs is walking with me

and if it’s not about the destination

why do we have to climb up that hill

and not just sit and look into the valley?

My dog —Rex or Happy or Maggie—

pants beside me.

The smell of blackberries heating

in the sun on the bushes below

wafts up to us. Even I, 

with a twenty-thousandth of the olfactory power

of my doggy companion,

know that sweet-sour tang

that belongs only to blackberry.

Rex gets up, stiff legged, and looks at me.

All right, I say, let’s get some,

and we climb down.

Happy always loved blackberries.

He would cock his head

and eat them oh-so-carefully off the vine.

No thorns that way, Rex says. 

We wander on, 

full of the taste of blackberry.

—Sarah Webb

In the Middle

Inspired by “How I would paint happiness” by Lisel Mueller,

and “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself” by Emily Dickenson,

and “The start of something” by Stuart Dybek

I was born in the middle of something,

Something that had been going on long before me.

I am assuming that whatever it is

will continue long after me.

I hope that I didn’t start this mess,

but maybe I can help to end it.

Perhaps it’s just a matter of a change in attitude,

a change in perspective.

Maybe, just maybe, I can be the difference

and be the beginning of something new,

something real and good.

But first, I must find myself,

lost in the darkness, I am,

but with you as my lantern, 

perhaps I can find my way again.

That would make me happy, 

like cherry blossoms in spring,

set loose by a sudden breeze,

each petal settling gently in

the palm of my hand.

And suddenly, there I was.

—Paul Causey

Poem for Bruce Linton and Appamada Friends

I take refuge in the sound.

Sounds that enter a fluid filled snail shell in our heads

pluck the nerves of our harp strings.

Sometimes, too much sound comes crashing in,

destroys the strings.

So, I take refuge in my strings that sing still.

I take refuge in the ducks palavering on muddied pond.

I take refuge in the bird calls welcoming a rest from sun.

I take refuge in the sigh of the runner stopping on the lane.

I take refuge in the songs of India emanating from the radio in the refugees’ hands.

I take refuge in the rush of water under the scurrying bellies of ducks,

in the gravel of the paths beneath our feet,

in the coded conversation of twin brothers walking by,

the leaves of trees whispering messages in the wind,

the roar of far-off traffic blaring by,

the laughter of the little girl throwing breadcrumbs to the chattering ducks,

the man’s hand patting the bark of the dying tree,

the creaks of my knees.

I take refuge that the ringing in my head is briefly veiled by the mist of outside sounds.

I take refuge in the heat in the spray of garden hose against our feet,

in the press of air against my skin,

in flapping of a cormorant’s wings.

I take refuge that none of this will last.

But it feels so good to be here, now, with you.

—Emily Romano

the start of something

the start of something always seems somehow

to only be new moments in perfect fit 

with everything already full grown,

softening belief that it is fate

which informs my life,

and the more I consider

such paths of inevitable destiny

the more I feel that fate 

makes plans only in my absence.

so thankfully I can say 

starting means continuing to make peace 

with this arguable dance of jurisprudence

that doesn’t offer freedom in any form.

which means I buckle up my dancing shoes 

on my feet of clay

upping the ante of being seen

dancing on water like a substitute savior,

and sinking,

realizing that nothing

not even the wet 

can be fully known

so no more starting 

but staying 

with the Zen master’s advice

that “when in doubt

turn to curiosity.”

enjoy the world that is a dream

and barely a description of a truth

that everything which will happen

happens today,

with all things arising

all at once

in an intimacy of essence.

—Ed Sancious

In the Silt

Inside there is a folded place.

It opens its wings

as the two sides of a shell,

a clam

or the bone white

angel shell, elegant

and ribbed.

Inside that place, hidden

dark in the silt of this beach,

a grief. 

It bubbles in the wash of my gaze:

a long-ago sadness,

a new one. 

Things were hard

and there was nothing to be done.

Things are still hard.

There is little to be done.

I let the bright-eyed mind

trace the old scar

and I feel the tremble.

Here you are, I say.

I am with you.

—Sarah Webb

Butterfly

As the butterfly discovers the ending is not like the 

beginning. We crawl towards our endings from 

place, friend, and dream. Did the butterfly miss 

his silk cocoon. Did it regret silence? The cramped 

space? After I left my Mother’s warmth, found 

betrayal like the butterfly who gains flight and loses 

silence my beginning safer lighter than light. 

—Joan Canby

“Chickadee”

Two swans perform a magic act 

behind a beaver dam.

Now you see them, now you don’t.

The glowing gold of sunset nestled to horizon.

Summer’s sweat chilled our necks, signaled time

walk back,

past the majestic white birch 

lounging like a Mata Hari against the elder elm. Glowing roots mixed dizzy into earth. 

Mom limped ahead, afraid of the coming night.

 I strayed behind and waited for a sign.

Then came the quiet flutter 

chickadee wings. 

One by one they leaped from seed to seed. 

Whatever one had missed the next one snapped 

like grape pickers in California fields. Except 

these chickadees picked seed for no one 

but themselves. 

Maybe because I stood still and quiet 

they paid me no mind. 

They leapt from the right, pod to pod,

 crossed the trail so close I could feel 

small wing’s wind on skin,

on to the pods to the left towards the water,

to the magic of the swans. 

Acrobatic little balls of fluff, sometimes upright bouncing on the tightrope of a stem, 

sometimes upside down,

snatching sweetest treats of a pod bowing down back to the earth from where it first sprung.

I stood in twilight’s breeze, listened 

to the distant stories: 

birds settling down for the night, 

the mixing of the water, 

the trills of frogs, 

winged hum of bugs, and, in between, 

soft landings of the chickedees leap to 

leap in line. 

It’s all you give for priceless thrill:

wait in stillness and silence,

the earth knows what to do.

—Emily Romano

Looking At Wild Cherry Trees

not that words will always fail,

but why does the tongue insist

that language with syllables and consonants

is able and willing to test

what should only be known as divine?

this fullness of emptiness

is normal 

at best

when just short of understanding.

not teasing time

to query the essence of source,

but holding wonder

at the shape of creation’s outcomes.

so I hold this as ambition…

to be a partner in silence

to treasure this alibi of form.

—Ed Sancious

Smile!

— Kim Mosley