”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.
Later today, if
the forecast holds, these tower-
ing clouds will give way
to thunder and rain.
Now they complete a sublime
image: two white swans
incandescently
groom themselves in the cloud’s
shimmer on the bay.
