Raven Verses IV

Responses to Robert Aitken, Zen Master Raven.

Enlightenment
The boundless inhabits, accepts bounds --
Seeps out, becomes boundless.
Love takes to the containment of a heart
So as to beat out its uncontainability.
Thus the thingness of things arrives already gone.

2017 Nov

Death
Bride of Christ, or of Frankenstein, or Groom of Gaia, or something --
We are all someways wedded to a large complexity
to whom our faithfulness will one day expire.
It, or She or He, will then remarry, eventually or soon,
and won't need our permission,
So I give it now, every day,
You may remarry, you may remarry, you may remarry.

2017 Nov

The Holy Spirit
Being as the light is, rising, setting,
Tracelessness is granted -- joy enough.
Two snags, to be avoided if one can, or incorporated:
The ideas of eternal life, and the eternal life of ideas.

2017 Dec

Very Special
There's never been anyone like anyone --
Each of us changing the world,
All day, every day.
I have known a million Red Oak leaves,
And still know nothing of the next one,
Fortunately.

2017 Dec

Metaphysics
Crane references God; Raven not so much.
Still: the mystery, humility, not knowing.
Raven mentions karma; Crane points to grace.
Still: sunshine and air are not earned,
nor our parents' love,
nor that nuthatch in the birch;
and causes have effects.
Choose a language, get a loyalty.
Choose a loyalty, get a language.
Who can name the antecedent?

2017 Dec

First Person Singular
To watch a movie, two pointers
Moviegoers follow effortlessly:
Remember it's an illusion, and
Forget it's an illusion.
Let yourself be taken in, and
Step back out again.
Be in that reality, while
Knowing it isn't real.
To have a self, the same two pointers.

2018 Jan

Veneration and Worship
I worship as an intransitive verb.
I venerate transitively.
Everything is one thing;
Every thing is another.

2018 Jan

Make Sense
Theirs to sing, flash color, beyond all sense.
Ours to plod, grind,
Justify our margins, rationalize our punctuation.
These too are pretty gifts, and we give them
As the finch gives hers.
Even so.
Is not this specialization an affront
To both song and reason?

2018 Jan

The New Discussion Leader
Sometimes, before I forget,
I know I'm going to.
I could write myself a note, I suppose.
Or
Let the trees pick up my slack.

2018 Jan

Guidelines
Your inheritance of joy and compassion,
What estranges you from it?
Every wave does, every ripple.
Your nest of understanding and love,
What gives it away?
Every ripple does, every wave.
The still water becomes clear,
Clear, clear down to the bottom.

2018 Jan

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