Once I saw a river. The mist rose off its back 

And swirled above it before dispersing to be 

Replaced by more mist. My own breath flows 

Out from my body and dissolves into thick air.

Sometimes the sun is too bright. I have lost a hummingbird 

Behind it before, as the sweet nectar of red flowers

Dripped from the bird’s beak. I can see it now, 

As it flies away from me and I lose it behind 

The too-bright sun. Down below, there is a dandelion 

Surrounded by wasps. The wind blows. It bows its head.

And sometimes, while I scooter to work, jagged 

Concrete stretches out for miles, longer even than 

The human eye can see. Not quite uniform,

But smoother the farther it is away from me. 

I think, sometimes, that maybe it really ends 

With whatever square I am standing on, that I am 

Trapped in a mirage, and I will tumble off and drop 

Into an endless darkness when I move forward.

Five strangers sit at a bus stop. I move past them and 

We try not to make eye contact with one another.

Staring at the ground, we mumble apologies. Someone 

Has left an old computer monitor on the bus stop bench.

A bird-of-prey circles above us. Some geese honk 

Frantically and gather their young.

Another truck cuts me off while I step into the

Crosswalk, and from the look on the driver’s face, 

He does not know how close he just came to crippling me. 

A dead goose lies in the dirt outside a water basin, 

Beneath a small sign on the fence that says 

“Wildlife Refuge.” I wonder what it would be like, 

to touch the clouds before they have fallen to the ground.

Legends tell from long ago how the Handsome Monkey

King would somersault on a cloud and travel a thousand

Miles in an hour. It must really have been something

To have the world opened up like that, to be able to jump into 

Heaven itself and challenge the Great Immortals. Perhaps it

Really is better just to sit, though, as the late Suzuki often advised. 

Or to live like Musashi, like one who has already died,

And so is prepared every day for death.

Too many rotations on the same wheel must be bad

For any soul. A hundred trillion voices echoing from

Across a river, superseded by visions of vapor. 

I am not listening. I am not listening, I tell myself. 

I cover my ears with my hands while evenings 

Creep toward dusk and finally midnight and I cannot 

Block the noise out from between my eardrums.

I am speaking many things here but I do not really 

Remember how the old sayings go. A million

Rosetta Stones, shiny and new, sit on bookshelves,

Almost as if to taunt those-who-walk-by.

I do not read them. It is better for them to have 

Stayed buried. And sometimes it is best just to sit.

And that where-do-we-begin feeling creeps back 

And forth, like vapor, like monasticism on a cool 

And rainy day when no one stays outside for long 

Except for those of us who are maybe just sort of 

Searching for something but hopefully not quite lost. 

Some days you can float about a quarter inch above 

The ground before someone sees you and rips you 

Back to wherever-you-were.

How many rows of corn upon corn upon rows of corn,

So much corn I do not wish to count it. A coyote roams

Through. I have seen it in the day, when it was blinded

By the too-bright sun and retreated once again to safety.

It did not even make a sound, as it loped out into the shining

Remains of freshly cut stalks and stood there, glowing

And illuminated, for a sad moment. Somebody told me 

Not to talk about that too much.

And late at night something glows in the darkness.

It pulls at the tides and reflects off the clouds.

Like a child, I look up and it blinds me just for a second,

A deafening reminder of the harsh light of a few hours 

Before, and, like a cockroach, I wish to scurry and hide.

Because, really, it is the imposing Eye of Heaven, 

And certainly it contains the judgment I have been trying 

To avoid since I decided, optimistically, that we all must 

Really just be random atoms floating through space after all. 

And sometimes even the moon sets and there
Is nothing but streetlight after streetlight. 

Even the sky seems to have set, when the 

Streetlights and the house lights block out the stars.

For a moment, then, there is some peace. No creature-

With-a-thousand-eyes, no thousand single-eyed 

Creatures, looking down on us. 

A mischievous monkey king eats the Peaches of Heaven.

He swallows the sacred pills and drinks the sacred wine.

Oh great drunken monkey king, what wisdom is there

To share today? Sometimes the rain falls like a relief 

And sometimes it just sort of ruins everything, like turning

The ground into muddy puddles. But the air has less smog

In it afterwards, every time. 

Oh drunken monkey king. I think I have lost the plot

Of my own memory. My ancestry hounds me like a

Great inverted tree, and I am the root, just walking 

Around above the hard ground. There must be 

Something in these old memories, something in 

Another book on a shelf or a story told to a half-circle

Audience…

And sometimes I’m on another caffeine trip late into 

The night. Three in the morning, five in the morning,

Four in the morning. Too much adrenal activity must

Be bad for every internal organ. There’s another

Thought to have, though, if I could just think it. A billion

Thoughts have been had by someone else, but I’m sure

I could have this one, if I could simply put my finger on it.

Something like an echo, something like something 

Reaching out to me. Like a big zazen retreat. Like many 

Voices calling a single word all at the same time. If I could 

Just put my finger on it, like I can almost touch it, even now, 

Just standing here, thinking about it. But it is eclipsed 

Again by something too-bright, something climbing

Over the eastern mountains.

And, just in a moment, we are all ripped out of that 

Wherever-we-are. Dropped back into the same day 

Somewhere.  All the imagery begins to break down,

And I can start to see them, clipped sentences like

Notes on carefully-lined pages, frayed at the edges,

Like someone has been sifting through them again

And again and again. Just the same choppy little

Sentences, all over again, and some of them are 

Actually quite long — long sentences — just being 

Sorted through all over again, as if maybe, finally,
This time they could bring about some salvation.