A long day apart
followed by another
will make these tender ones remote —
but late at night
passing an upstairs window
and caught by the moon
as it mingles with the dim street lamp,
I will pause,
and notice the overlapping snowshoe paths
behind the house,
evidence of our time together.
Rust and fallen snow
rest upon cracks and fissures
revealed by soft light,
confirmation of failure
weathered by time’s measured grace.
Dear ones lie still,
near and peaceful,
yet quiet has settled too deeply,
darkness persistent, final —
can these shallow breaths
be the full completion of Dogen;
sudden loneliness,
truly buddha nature;
restlessness,
realization;
misgiving,
it?
I’ve gained nothing
from the practice,
instead losing some
of what I used to have.
What I looked for isn’t here.
Still fearful,
bitter at separation —
but, too,
softened against the day
and quicker to tears.
My daughter’s pockets
are filled with shiny rocks,
just like mine.
I salvaged a set of antique doors
that were piled in a yard
close by the ocean
with other detritus
from a torn-down house.
Hoping the owner would let me take them,
I talked with him
and listened to his stories
about who had passed through them,
what rooms they had separated.
It isn’t easy to find ones just so,
with the hardware still intact.
Perhaps if I hold on to them,
I thought,
and shape them here or there,
they’ll fill up gaps —
shut out the draft from the
old ice-box pantry,
dampen the kitchen noise that drifts
so easily up the stairs
when our children are sleeping.
But I wonder
if I will have time to use them,
or if someday
someone will come
and collect them from me.
Not waiting for dark,
when merging is effortless,
involuntary —
clouds, hills, and fields reach across
quiet gaps and outstretched space.
(A Tanka poem. Photograph from a New England late afternoon, 8 December 2012)
Clutter has built up
around the edges of the room.
Facing the altar,
I can not see it,
but the gravity
of its accumulation
pulls me backward
toward the west window.
It isn’t much –
an iron, a board,
and hangers from the morning;
my daughter’s cloth cuttings
spilling from a box she has
decorated in tissue paper;
a small book of poems
without a shelf;
remnants awaiting
places to fit
just so.
slate clouds push down as
snow merges with darkness —
children’s play echoes.
The lineage scroll from Jukai rests,
tucked in the flickering shadow,
behind the incense bowl
and grandmother’s Buddha —
cold rattles the window and hardens the floor.
My sons might be ignoring me
across the space of the kitchen and family room.
In the minutes that just passed,
they had shared only glaring complaints
and intrusions into coveted space
in the struggle to get teeth brushed
and clothes exchanged for pajamas.
Now they have settled next to each other,
one reclining deep into the corner of the couch,
slowly turning a page,
and pulling on a fingernail with his teeth;
the other kneeling up to the cushion,
working the pieces of a wooden box puzzle,
alternatively holding his breath and exhaling with concentration.
I’ve called them to bed
but can’t repeat myself.
The silence brushes my skin
as I stand absorbed and unmoving.
bussokuseki 