Metaxyturn Diaries

A SONG IN PASSING

I’m the blind man who

waves to every passer-

by—the bird wing’s sigh,

the human footstep.

I have beautiful hands, or

so my lover says.

I’m told I’m naive,

trusting. We are all passing.

We make our own luck.

WORK IN PROGRESS

You kill me, I said.

You looked off to the pond where

a white egret stalked.

You kill me, I said.

I looked where you were looking.

The egret plunged its

long white neck and

drew it out shining, throbbing.

You kill me, you said.

That made me happy. We were

young, we spoke our minds.

“It is thoroughly unbiblical and destructive to think that we can never suffer innocently as long as some error still lies hidden within us.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, PSALMS

You died peacefully

at night, having faced the worst,

smiling. A few days

later, your ashes

drifted on a Pacific

wave. The wrath of God

hounded me for years.

Today the Atlantic shapes

the stones I turn o-

ver idly at sun-

down. The only cure for grief

is another love.

WORK IN PROGRESS

“To make way for the other is to create an opening for freedom that is not for oneself, though in that opening one is fully there for whatever may eventuate along the way.” William Desmond, quoted by Morisato, Faith and Reason, 124.

I have met others

on my summer rambles through

the estuary.

Village gardeners

wave over their bent shoulders

and beds of iris.

From time to time glints

of ocean shine through the hedges.

Heaven and earth one.

I follow Basho

following Zhuangzi: forget

your self on the way.

I have met others

as I get home: the coolness

in the shuttered house.

In the lush tree tops

this long summer afternoon,

children endlessly

play. The sun goes down

in the thick poplar windrows,

leaves stir in the breeze

and suddenly there

the moon is— abrupt, whole, clear;

nothing else matters.

WORK IN PROGRESS

SONG OF SITTING

Still as an infant

on her mother’s lap, I watch

the world go by. Folk

pass as the weather

worsens and the killing set-

tles nothing. Couples

hold hands loosely or

with white knuckles. Mother shifts

her weight, her gaze

never leaving me.

Buddha gently directs me

to her empty smile.

SONG OF EXCESS

From Luke 6:38: ”good measure, pressed down and overflowing.”

Daylight streaks the walls.

After last night’s discussion,

what more can be said?

I fall into day,

squinting. We touched on all our

favorites, and then

some. And today’s bright

emptiness confirms why we

hold the silences.

Grief releases in-

finite desire. Wind-blown blos-

soms choke the gutter.

Stay within yourself

however wet and windy.

Death can’t penetrate

the self. So let it

be this innermost weather,

this lush appearing.

”This elementary rapport with the worth of being is both felt and affirmed for the being in its otherness to our mind beyond dualism. This is extremely difficult to understand.” Morisato, 97.

There are no worthless

objects only personal

limits. Fat goslings

graze under broken

skies. Down below in the cove,

ducks go in circles.

I let it all speak

to me and through me. Divine

ambiguities.

Adam and Eve walked

hand in hand in the garden.

I’ve known her light touch.

“Complete attention is like unconsciousness.” Simone Weil, quoted in Kotva, Effort and Grace, p. 140

WORK IN PROGRESS

A room at the top

of a hill overlooking

the bay, which changes

color. Trees awash

in change. From this height I am

open to change. Still,

above all this, that

emptiness awaiting words

that need not change. That

fertile Nothingness

grounds my love and myself in

change, eternal change.