not my abstract heart
but the real one— letters
from the health clinic
Category: Nichiren
1515
japanese children
making snow bodhisattvas
outside the temple
1208
endless life revealed
wet clay shapes itself
on the potter's wheel
Art by Linda S. Hawkes, quote from Nichiren
703
buddha– anyone
who wakes up
and smells the karma
442
puff of down drifting
on voices of those chanting,
prayer uplifting
LITURGY
Life makes Life a simple gift,
wraps in parable and myth
a thing not so large it
cannot fit into a single lotus seed
not so small it couldn’t bulge
and expand the cosmos
not so near it does not shine
on numberless galaxies beyond sight
not so far its breath doesn’t
touch your ear in the quiet of night
and whisper that it’s name is “Life”
all around and flowing within us
the heart’s blood of waking buddhas
who open their eyes laughing
having dreamt we are glasses of water
deep in wondrous, rhythmic seas
(Lines 3-6 paraphrased from Nichiren Daishonin’s Sanze Shobutsu Sokammon Sho, Gosho Zenshu 563)
Bullfrog 4/26/15
eyes shut to beauty
in a sea of bright lotus
bullfrog sings the blues
Young Son
Like a monkey off he runs
When the mother calls him
To chant for two minutes.
He leaps away, his karma
In hot pursuit to reveal
Bodhisattva Unsurpassed
Ripening within him.
Cat Nap Revue 