Mary Oliver,
that queen of the deep cool well:
“Poetry musn’t be fancy…”
i beg to differ, and in
that flash of infancy,
that primordial shout!
how one bursts forth:
the radiant sun,
from rock cave —
“I AM!!!!”
a universe burst forth —
in radiant abundance!
a photon, that line,
communication,
piercing all creation.
our humble homes,
portable photon altars,
in our hands, which once
were anchored, reach
to recharge on occasion, like we.
have we forgotten that it is we,
fields of individual,
working together in emitting
“I am”?
something deep and appealing
to the schizoid present,
here in this time; compressing time
is correlated to its abilities.
seeing deeper and narrower within
this kaleidoscope of reality:
dot products of angular momentum,
change, and precession with change.
do not seek rhythm,
at first. form follows function…
this is what Mary spoke of, and yet
in first person, it seems strangely familiar,
like the founders of this nation…
no noble titles for leaders.
“Musn’t be fancy…”
yes, for those penetrating
meditation before insight.
yet for those of us, on the other side,
the artist not seeking the descriptive,
nor the conceptual.
far beyond perverted views,
one dwells in nibbana.
nibbana and samasara
superpositioned.
knowing this, having gone
beyond. moksha.
unbinding.
the flash,
is blinding.
“you knowing blind people
can reading book?”
a great patriarch,
Saotome shihan,
sensei, professes.
stopping time,
all light exposed
upon the film.
every angle,
every vector,
every permutation,
every cluster,
every map,
every field,
every set,
every net.
unbound.
and how does a monkey remove
the paw from pitch?
it snapped, in the museum,
and nobody was there
to see it.
slowly, very slowly,
let the rhythm be your guide, what
a beautiful enigma.
[ mathematical set operation(s)1 ]
just so, nobody will/saw it happen,
ten thousand sages will not know you
and you strode deeper into the world,
just as Mary said you would:
determined to
do the only thing that you could do,
determined to save the only thing you could save.
[ it’s about them ]
it’s not about you
a great sea of conception.
a great sea of jhana.
mara visits the shadows of a ridge pole,
knocking against the sky,
the ridgepole nearly broken,
the heavenly spear remains.
to remain until all are liberated,
it is a long way down off this
bridge.
this is misogi.
this is the fruit of aikido,
that “non-functional art”,
that reveals function.
only to those that persevere,
in the deepest of shugyo,
each and every moment, of
each and every day. beginning
anew, imagine your life after
ai. always a beginner. a calculus
of a blade over heart, body, and mind.
like those photons of light.
worshipped on this altar,
held between two palms,
reflected in this brain.
far beyond original brain,
far beyond conception.
it leaves no trace.
this is why i don the bell,
and shed the ceremonial robes.
because it’s all true.
goodbye Mary of Olives,
the branch has been laid down.
thank you for the invitation,
to that cool dark cave.
i shall be no longer in need of
it… as you said…
the wild geese harsh and exciting.
like that bottle of San Pellegrino,
wandering samsara, now no longer lost,
like me. ichi-go, ichi-eh.
what was necessary,
is now sufficient.
and thus i return,
having changed.
end transmission.
