Author: Tom D'Evelyn

The yellow stripe o-

ver a woodpecker’s dark eye

in Zaplinski’s po-

em has a life of

its own. It highlights the gaze

of the startled man

whose window it ap-

pears at. Yellow confirms it

happened in this world.

”In order for us to account for the concrete singularity of the finite mindful self, then, we must both reach out to being in its irreducible otherness and open ourselves to the divine absolute beyond ourselves.” Takeshi Morisato

Ladders fall away

between billowing white clouds

and ducks in the cove.

The way up and the

way down, there’s no difference

on this July day.

A vision granted

to a wanderer. I’m not

picky about such.

Under a small dark

tree shadows shift, sparrows leap

from the ground into

the foliage. Did

I spook them? I hope not. They

disappear. Nothing

now in the summer

sunlight. The original

radiance. Absence.

It’s official:

we live in catastrophic times.

The news can’t shock us.

We spend time alone.

We make peace with Nothingness—

not mindless but mind-

ful of otherness:

that just this stranger now and

again says hello.

The leaves breathe, the trees

sigh. Midsummer. Having come

this far, there’s far to

go. Canadian

geese gather on the grass near

the breakwater. Some

look at the Bay, some

find seeds and grit to eat. None

find me interesting.

Han Shan says his mind

is like a cloud that leans on

nothing. I know the

feeling. I watch swans

preen for two hours a day on

sandy outcrops. Grass

holds the spot intact

in the deeps. The swans’ white forms

change shape constantly.

My fist sticks to the

notebook page. Humidity

slows everything down.

I draw the same swans

in the same dark cove, the same

chiaroscuro cools

me. As I work, pas-

sivity becomes a grace

on hot afternoons.

,

There was no quiet

when I got to my writing

place. So I just wrote.

I wrote my budget—

numbers are writing, right? I

filled pages with cute

steel-nibbed italics.

I emptied my so-called mind

then enjoyed myself.

As it turns out books

overflow their shelves, mountains

of them make canyons

and then higher heights.

I keep the lights on all night.

I learn from the cat

how to step with grace.

A saint may pick up and read

on impulse, not me.

The bed is so hot

I can’t lie down for a nap.

I take a cold bath,

think like a duck, and

roll with the cold wind and waves.

I can see the point

of my duck-viewing.

Humans trapped in themselves suf-

fer beyond reason.