What Comes to Mind (poem)
Tsultrim
Hawaii Veteran
Well, what comes to mind,
Do i need a sign or is love sufficient?
And who sang the Song of Love, i hear it in my mind now
Or is it the Book of Love and does it really matter?
Now, there's a question for a Buddhist.
Why not smile and act enlightened
No need to say anything, like the the Zen master with his thunderous silence.
Maybe a little Mona Lisa smile if ignorance is a problem.
Zen masters can be a bristly lot (or do i cause them to bristle, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa)
They're probably tired of dealing with ignorance every day
Ignorance of true reality i mean, their students are usually smart, for all the good it does them.
The coquis sing every night here, maybe i shouldn't call it singing.
They're frogs, muy pequeno, who came in plants from Puerto Rico (they're lucky they got out.)
I believe the Zen masters would like the coquis and we would have coqui haikus and coqui koans
"Who is it that hears the coquis or, as to that, ask the coquis.
The night here is like being covered with a soft, sable robe
And when the sky is clear if the month is right you can see the Southern Cross, my favorite constellation, Bless me Jesus
I wonder who named it, did they know about Christianity, certainly there was a word for cross before then.
I'm tired today, just didn't sleep well
Even when we awake we're often still asleep so what's so restful about sleep?
I saw the demented man today, intimations of coming attractions.
He was in his wheelchair and his eyes looked like moon lit clouds, sorta.
I wonder, do the coquis sing for him, for the "mermaids do not sing for me". Bless me Father for i have sinned "In her orisons may all my sins be remembered".
Let all know there is nothing to know and the arhats toppled over with strokes or was it heart attacks and wasn't it about emptiness, i think so.
The Arhats we're quite attached to eglosessness of self i believe.
Rock me in your arms Mother as i lay dying like the Arhats who got a shock
Gnosis is OK but regular knowing has to go, at least for us "dying on the sagging chains."'
I'm quite tired, fatigue must be French, a close cousin to ennui i suspect.
Well, "Goodnight Mrs Calabash wherever you are.""
Comments
There are a few things here that pluck at the heartstrings - because isn’t that what all poetry does? It speaks directly to the heart by conjuring up in you visions, via a kind of shorthand, and with a rhythmic quality it sets the mind in motion...
It's an insightful bit of prose....
Kerome I can't say much about it, except it's fun to do. If you get something out of it that makes it even better. I write hoping someone connects, but I'm not surprised if no one does. Thanks for the note.
I'm pleased you find it that way, federica