Raven Verses III

Responses to Robert Aitken, Zen Master Raven.

Inspiration
Peekaboo! Where are you?
There you are! Here I am!
The inspiration in your own heart. Where?
From somewhere else. Where?
Peekaboo. There it is.
Parent and child convulsed with giggles.

2017 Sep

Karma
Murder, etc. Before it outs,
It ins. And it's sticky. Atoning
Doesn't always succeed. Not atoning
Lives the lie.

2017 Sep

Propinquity
It's a murmuration of boomerangs
Doing what they are
Going around coming around
Less coordinated than starlings
They frequently bump
Leave marks and nicks
Work themselves pure

2017 Sep

The Purpose of the Practice
The practice is the enlightenment, the doing is the purpose,
The doubting is the faith, the asking is the inkling.
What am I saying? Badgers dig.
On the whole Blue Planet, nothing is missing.

2017 Oct

Brown Bear's Purpose
What do the maples have in mind, their red leaves falling?
What does the moon have in mind, its crescent resting in the branches?
Something, perhaps, though they seem
To have forgotten what it was.

2017 Oct

Buddhist Terms
Save every being, end every delusion.
Do this twice every morning before breakfast, and after.
Gain wisdom from every sensation, embody the entire Buddha way.
Like the rain, like the rain, like the rain.

2017 Oct

Maintenance
Being present to. Becoming the proof of.
These two things only are to be done
With and in this brief and florid stay:
Witness, and bear witness.
Heaven, hell, and a planetful of blue,
Are sitting here, sitting here.

2017 Oct

Buddha
The most basic most eludes definition.
Would you constrain the stream of love poems?
Or otherwise delimit the limitless?
When a single leaf is clear,
what the master is talking about
doesn't much need to be.

2017 Nov

Delusion
Names lie. A cup or tree: infinitely more than
Its cupness or treeness. And less.
Not merely the falseness of categories, this --
For proper names lie as blatantly and remorselessly.
To dress in such lies: a risk.
To step naked into the truth of presence:
Also a risk.

2017 Nov

Mythology
"Everybody needs to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer." (Fear)
The believing's in the doing. The holy
Emerges from the worship. Trees
From sylvics, dendrology, forestry, timbering, carpentry.
On the question of what is really,
The steadfast practice needs not opine.

2017 Nov

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