What We Know, Terzata #42

There were a thousand crows

Asleep in their rookery

Before the winter sun rose.

I rise with them, insomniac weary,

And pour into the hollow

Of my brain the blustery

Anticipations to follow,

What I must and cannot do,

And what time will allow.  

One crow caws. I answer “You!

Think you!” as though he knows

The universe might offer a clue.

As he staggers away, it snows. 

Bodhidharma (Anso), Sonnet #587

 

The man sat for nine years.

After seven he cut

Off his eyelids to keep

Awake. He disappears

Into the mental rut

So like and unlike sleep.

He becomes, without skin,

Just the robe he’s clothed in,

Empty of good and sin,

Sans end or origin.

At last he left the cave,

Thinking, “Mind is a grave

And nothing I can save.”

He gave the wind a wave.

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase at Amazon. Click here:

My Human Disguise.

Fog Run II (Alice Guerin), Sonnet #536

As if we’ve wandered into dark chances,

A fog descends through thick forest branches

With the silent drop of a heavy drape.

Our first intuition is for escape.

The fog uncenters us, spreading us thin —

Once guiltless we feel we might deserve sin,

That the fog is a judgement for not being —

Not feeling, not hearing, and not seeing —

Not as we might and now we know we must.

It’s not too late! The fog is life, not dust. 

Look back! Don’t let the other fall behind,

Or you both might become equally lost.

There could be nothing where the sun once shined,

But only now. Soon you’ll know heat or frost.

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here: My Human Disguise. 

Myna Bird in Pine Tree (Mu Ch’i), Sonnet #535

 

It’s said you have to split its tongue

When the myna is very young

Before you can teach it to speak.

At first it wags its yellow beak

While emitting a stifled squeak.

The patient teacher says one word,

And then to unconfuse the bird,

Repeats it many times, mimics

Himself, until the bird’s mind clicks

And its forked tongue repeats the word.

It can learn any human sound

As long as it's kept in its cage.

It dies if released from that cage

Into worlds of confusing sound.

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here:

My Human Disguise.

The Monk by the Sea (Caspar David Friedrich), Sonnet #529

The rock shelf doesn’t hold the sea

In place, thought the monk, rather say,

Water will accept a boundary

Because that is the given way.

He has learned little all these years;

How to eat, walk, but not to think,

But in the vanquishing of fears —

Little stones thrown in the sea sink.

He fears most the fog’s unwinding,

Like cloth from a bolt, the blinding,

When the sun’s lost sight of his eyes.

Then there's no telling fog from self.

He’s moveless till the wind rises.

A step might send him off the shelf.

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here:

My Human Disguise.

Knot Eye Tiger (Alice Bea Guerin), Sonnet #493

The Japanese artist reduces the word

To the image, not unlike a cartoon

In its simplicity and lack of depth,

To find the inessence of the absurd,

The quintessence of the present rune.

Such images never drew in a breath,

But they look at us with knotted eyes

Drawing tight the ends of close and soon,

All to answer our what’s? with why’s?

This is our one tiger, the tigers croon.

You are only yourselves in our disguise,

Only knowing us without being wise.

The tiger has disappeared into the page

To reappear in the next human age.

Sanskrit Character—Fudo, The Demon Queller (Hakuin), Sonnet #481

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here:
My Human Disguise.

The character knew he could not kill

But only quell the demon within,

Only drive his foot into its throat

And not let up even when it grew still,

As he knew that was its rictus of sin

(Less potent when, silenced, no gloat

Assailed the air like a black-winged kite,

Its head and eyes deceptively white

Circling harvested fields, hunting soul),

His leg beyond strength, aging to stone,

A numbness, cold as unfired coal,

The marrow seeping from his ankle bone,

He thinks he could surrender and free

The evil that, laughing, wouldn’t flee.

Procession of the Autumn Insects (Matsumura Keibun), Sonnet #479

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here:
My Human Disguise.

The crickets sing ceaselessly every night.

Are they warning off or chirping the dark?

They’ve a neutral effect, like a chalk mark

On an old slate blackboard, more gray than white.

I walk out into the back yard. Silence.

A crescent moon slides behind a thick cloud.

I shout “yes!” once and shatter night’s nonsense.

When I go in the crickets’ answer, both loud

And incessant, scolds me for my pretense.

I realize they are not scared, but proud.

In autumn, some crickets sound all day long,

As they regale the sun in regal state.

In moonlight, they whisper, winter can wait.

Soon the first frost will extinguish their song.

Buddha Riding a Dragon (Utagawa Kunisada), Sonnet #404

The question of responsibility

Is confronted where the wind meets the waves,

That filament of cause where the one laves

The other in strict reciprocity. 

Buddha and dragon each the other saves:

If the serpent throws him, the man will drown.

(He can walk on scales, but not on water.)

But, the mythic dragon cannot falter.

Faith in a faith will never let him down.

The mind of the monk may change, not alter.

Without the Buddha the dragon will die,

As a vacuum would kill the dragonfly.

I walk each day and watch the red-tail fly.

When I turn away, he holds up the sky.

Hanshan and Shih-te (Sengai Gibon), Sonnet #377

Giggling Shih-te and the scribbler Hanshan

Scrub the scree and pebbles on Cold Mountain.

Shih-te moves them aside with his light broom,

Then brushes them back again to make room

For the emptiness between each small stone.

Dust rises like ghosts, silent and alone.

He laughs, delighted at the nothing he has done.

Hanshan washes each gem, rock, and boulder

With a brush dripping with sticky black ink.

If he can, he will make the mountain think

Thoughts not the oldest, but even older.

The work drives needles into his shoulder.

He calls to Shih-te, tells him of his pain.

Needles broomed, all is soon washed clean by rain.

Stone Formation, Sonnet #367

 

The experience of enlightenment

Is the arrangement of a few beach stones

On an old wooden deck, not an event,

Not a vision, not a handful of koans.

Ikkyu had this moment of insight

On hearing the song of a soldier's slight

That drove two girls into a nunnery,

Leaving their general his gunnery:

“Sixty blows from my master’s stick would serve

As well to achieve what I don’t deserve.”

These four stones have been carelessly arranged,

Each chosen for its one flat edge to rest

And have in wind and rain remained unchanged.

In their presence I’m an unwanted guest.

Note: Much of Ikkyu’s life is apocryphal, though

the story of his enlightenment upon hearing the

blind man’s song about two women ill-treated

by a general is a central part of his legend. The

quote I attribute to him is consistent with the
legend, though partly my invention.  

Vimalakirti, (Painter Unknown), Sonnet #265

Even a Buddha would think that the dark is light
And all is nothing and nothing is is bullshit.
Thunderous silence is any mind's steady state.
On every eyelash thrives a ravenous mite,
Vimalakirti would have said, had he the wit.
We cannot eat what those who came before us ate.
There's one answer to each question, which is silence.
What is red? Why is Cassiopeia that way?
What is the difference between past and future tense?
What did you say? What do you say? What will you say?
On a clear day, the horizon line on the lake
Is the turned-away cheek of a sleeping Baku,
Devourer of nightmares. He is me and you.
Hold your tongue, close your eyes, and stay awake.

Last Hike (Shitao), Sonnet # 262

If there is anything, there's no last hike.
Standing above the clouds with my old friend,
We contemplate the imminent end
Of sunlight and the scolding of the shrike,
Guarding his bugs impaled in the bramble.
The mists roil, mass, thin, darken, briefly part,
Revealing mist. Up and back, we amble
Along the precipice. It's time to start
Back, though it's harder to relinquish time
Stepping down than to find it as you climb.
So, we find we have been frozen, like rock,
Our marbled eyes fixed on the blinding glare
Of saturated and sun-glazed air --
In there, the dripping of a water clock.

Eagle (Kishi Ganku), Sonnet #258

The feathers only frame the human eye,
A master's eye, an enlightened being
Who sees the flea struggling in the sand,
Who has forgotten to forget the I,
Who sees the present in all that's fleeting,
Who wields a heavy and powerless wand.
I suspect enlightenment, when men "see,"
Is nothing much, a mere epiphany,
A moment of insight, most certainly,
But not quite a glimpse of eternity.
A piercing human eye, an eagle's soul?
The teachings of Jesus, Buddha, et al,
All come down to this. You're free. It's your call.
Do good, love all men, don't be an asshole.

Two Water Sonnets, Nos. 256 and 257

Seascape (Sargent), Sonnet #257

The former troop transport sails west,
Back to the Philippine Islands,
Now with a family of nine.
I clutch at the rail as each crest
Breaks and falls. I struggle to stand,
Looking at the horizon line.
I am six. The sea a billion.
Both of us younger than the sun.
Flying fish and porpoises leap,
As if to lead us past the deep.
The Deep, from which the waves, dark, wild,
And cold, grasping, thrust up, and flail
Like the hands of a drowning child --
And through them ships serenely sail.

The Cascade of Mingxianquan at Mt. Hutouyan (Shitao), Sonnet #256

Like arrows shattering when they strike stone,
The rivulets off Mt Hutouvan mist.
Shredded by the air, they cease to exist,
Voicing their fall in a moaned monotone.
Each trace has drifted over time, leaving
Long scars (now covered by lichen and moss),
The whole like portions of the human brain.
Now beyond the stone, the waters, weaving
In an updraft, are perpetual loss
Restored above by perpetual rain.
We stand enshrouded in moist air, blinking
And cold by a pool beneath the cascade,
Watching each other as we slowly fade,
Ideas worn thin by too much thinking.

Moebius Strip With Ants (Escher), Sonnet #255

Now is now, but then isn't then.
It was then, then it looms again,
Then. A conundrum, very Zen.
Ants follow only the given
Road, arriving where they begin,
Unaware of the moment when
What seemed a simple and open
Path becomes blind beyond reason.
The page is the time of all men,
Where the word released by the pen
Can grace the past with an amen,
Or trace loops of evil omen.
It's the same word, this very "then!" --
Old oxen and a lighting wren.

The Wave, Sonnet #253

I dove and dove into the next crest;
Then, dizzy, with my spine wrenched, I floated,
Face down, standing when sand brushed my chest.
Each wave yearns, its will pure and devoted
To reaching the afterlife of the shore.
As it thins to wash, there is nothing more.
I've thrashed and pummeled the waves, throwing
Myself, breast and head first, for an hour,
Unthinking with laughter, gulps of knowing,
Loosing myself into the wave's power.
I know, not every one dies on the beach.
Those farthest out tip high and flatten out.
I swim well, but they're beyond my reach.
New waves will rise and peak beyond doubt.

Bodhidharma (Hakuin), Sonnet #244

For Lucien Stryk

His eyes tell us he grasps nothing he sees.

Nothing like shock, wonder, or puzzlement
(His purpose, to see only by degrees),
His response is a dog's to a new scent.
The more he's enlightened, the more dour,
Saddened by the presumption of a flower,
Disillusioned by the barred owl's power --
Endless patience where the field mice cower.
As he stared into a cave for nine years,
Did he presume to think he saw it all,
What is, what isn't, on a granite wall,
That makes a mockery of monks and seers?
Here he's a presence more paper than ink,
All marrow, nothing more, no sense, no think.

Lucien Stryk was one of my writing teachers
at Northern Illinois University. A fine teacher
and poet, he was very influential in
bringing Zen poetry to the United States 
through his translations and interviews. He
was a good friend and mentor.

Hotei Watching Mouse Sumo (Hakuin)

#104

Jolly Hotei knows nothing of sumo,
Nor of mice, but of sumo wrestling mice
There is nothing he does not understand.
He blew smoke rings once of Otufuko,
A prostitute whose skin was pale as rice.
Two words he's never said are: "I demand."
He pooh poohs the myth that he's flown, a kite,
When it was his grinning that took that flight.
He likes a game, but doesn't play them well.
Winning seems a tiny corner of hell.
He totes his world about in a bundle --
Gifts for the needy, his bedding and socks;
Or himself, tied in with a knot, trundles,
A circle rolling over pond and rocks.

Hawk in Snow (Julia Guerin)

#38

I feel better after snow—
The gray world gone white,
The field a spruce torso.
I am a roaming kite,
Hovering above the mouse
Who dies without a fight.
I swallow, mite and louse,
Leave not one red drop
On that immaculate blouse.
My wings unsheathed, I hop
Into spangled air. Let no
Man think I'll ever stop.
I am only what I know,
That I am because of snow.