Fuggedaboutit

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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