image borrowed from bing
Fuggedaboutit
“ Zen is not philosophy, it is poetry. It does not propose,
it simply persuades. It does not argue, it simply sings.”
---Osho
The slave’s rut, worn smooth by countless feet,
was never really my soul’s domicile, though
I labored there with my chained brethren--
surrounded by those leaden-eyed, gray-skinned
worker bees, who at the end of each shift, gleefully
unsnapped their harnesses, and raced home
to their mind-numbing technology & toys--
whilst I , always the first to arrive & last to leave,
savored the puffy dandelions poking their sassy
heads out of the cracks in the concrete, marveled
at the mirth of the dust that danced in the perfect
bands of light, enjoying the horseplay between
sun & earth, shadows & radiation there on
the red linoleum of the employee restroom, smiling
at the fat hawk’s nest perched atop the phone pole
at the head of my alley, and always when I strode
gently across my back yard I longed to be
the magnificent Maple in my neighbor’s yard, just
supremely solid, tall, immovable, unblinking with
branches as thick as elephant legs, always
receptive but never judgmental, rooted
firmly in the Now;
bearing, wearing luxurious leaves without pride,
shedding them by the tubful when Autumn’s
death was upon them, within them; plugged
pugnaciously but not perniciously deep
into the spiritual girding of axis & reality,
the colonic cycle of Life, unafraid
of the woodsman’s axe, sweetly oblivious
to Homeland Security, the IRS, jihadists,
big screen plasma televisions, and war
games--both video & visceral;
and it has taught me without words,
now that my servitude has ended
and I busily tread the path from bondage
to freedom, I can immerse my self
in my Self, celebratory and joyous
that this time I eluded both faith & devotion
and have emerged from the chrysalis
unscathed, still curious and creative;
barking like the vicious dog on the other side
of my Sears chain link fence, still seeking
some tiny particles of the greater Truth;
that which eternally defies definition, regardless
of how many lifetimes I have pursued it,
or of how many karmic pitfalls I have stumbled
into and pulled myself out of, or through.
At this juncture, imbedded in this moment,
I have fully accepted Leonard Cohen
as my personal prophet poet, Jikan, who
after several years of seclusion & meditation
on top of Mt. Baldy, came down and returned
to smoking,
to alcohol,
to women,
to song,
because he finally found the strength
to inactively enter the Zen dialogue:
“What is mind?
No matter.
What is Matter?
Never mind.”
Glenn Buttkus
May 2013
Posted over on sVerse Poets Poetics
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