Ode

Here Comes The Sun King, The God Lugh, John Barleycorn, O Juliet and They Must Die. For It Is Lammas Eve, Looking to Lughnasadh, Beginning of The Harvest, August, A Certain Slant Of Light

O Psychological Thought is responsible for every War and every Murder and all Unspeakable Acts. If you choose a side, any side, this is what you ultimately choose. Thank god there's choiceless awareness

love is not a choice. Love is what there is before a choice. Always choose love. Render unto August the objects belonging to August but render to myself their life force. At last

a field of purple loosestrife, invasive weed, like deconstructive thoughts from Asia—August—late dawns, early sunsets—the apparent lessening of light—but these days taste concentrated as if boiled to an essence—

if July is the month of lightning bugs, August is the month of dragonflies—they don't just shine their light. They breathe fire! August 2007—I am climbing Yamadera—

the rest of my group is somewhere else around this temple being mountain—an ancient Chinese woman is translating the cicadas for me—ever since the First of August means No Crickets Yet.

Haiku Haiku Haiku

Speaking your mind is plagiarism. Speak love instead. In the world, silence is not a right. This love is silence speaking. Truest outlaw.

Now is the season of the butterfly. Its story is the nectar of the gods. Transformation is the nature of the beast.

Even science says that self-awareness is the only great intention and the fact of death is pointless and absurd.

But philosophy only thinks about it. Experiential being without thinking knows. Haiku haiku haiku.

The sun sets earlier tonight but I know it's only this and that. Space has no seasons. Contemplation is knowing a cigarette boat is

temporary. Open windows on a summer evening like the sea seen from an easternmost peak.

Evening breeze and leaves are dancing like translucent jade ninjas. Early July night. Not a sound in the valley. Not even a cricket.

An Epistle to the Person

The human body-mind is this wondrous instrument in and of consciousness developed in the process of evolutionary self-awareness.

But because of its metamorphic novelty, the body-mind misidentifies with itself, as a person, in a deficient sense of self-awareness,

and in effect usurps the absolute noumenon, which is a separate and most unnatural state, to say the least.

The resultant human condition of suffering is the natural balancing of forces in this process of self-awareness,

although to the mistaken identity of the person, it appears to be some kind of political imbalance within infinitesimal divisions,

and so it goes on and on. But “all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well” because consciousness.

2008 No Other Side

No division, no separation, no politics—there’s just purple loosestrife. If space is a metaphor for consciousness, then time is the darkest matter

of all anti-matter. A snake doesn't look like an illusion. A person lost at sea doesn't feel like self-awareness.

Li Po didn't drown in some watery reflection of the moon. He sees he is the moon and jumps right in! Look, being is not a social media—

it's more like an Emily Dickinson poem. Ten years ago, a coyote crossed the road to kill me. Somehow I still got to Santa Fe.

Georgia O'Keeffe. Ansel Adams. The Church of Saint Francis at Rancho de Taos 1929. The desert is form. Form is the desert.

At latest count, 140 bighorn sheep inhabit the alpine regions of Pikes Peak. By the time I got to Woodstock, who am I?

An Epistle to Nothing but Water

A person is like a fish out of water but call it brainwashing instead—there’s nothing but water in this divine analogy.

They call it selling water by the river but it’s really selling water in the river.

It takes a certain kind of sick infected suffering imagination to think that any phenomenon, no matter how personal it may appear to be, is not in consciousness.

Consciousness is the only manifestation of the unmanifest noumenon. The material world is as immaterial in consciousness as a dream is in mind—call it emptiness, impermanence, transformation, even vanity, but it’s not a real world.

Manifest consciousness is the unmanifest Absolute knowing it is the unmanifest Absolute. The dream state is how consciousness facilitates this knowing within consciousness. Call this evolutionary story the specter of self-awareness.

This fluid specter of self-awareness is called divine imagination when imagination is not sick infected suffering. Whether a butterfly or a Taoist wandering at ease, such a fish knows it’s in the wholly holey holy water.

Festival Manifestation

This weekend marks the height of New England summer heat—the sun is dropping body-mind. 

Everything appears in consciousness and it's abundantly apparent if one doesn't think about it.

Body-mind is like the dream machine of divine imagination getting lost within the nuts and bolts of its survival—but it's just my imagination running away with me. 

Next week the summer starts to fall. Nagarjuna's emptiness is Han Shan's transformation. Nothing not cold can stay.

Looking inside is called leaving the world. Dropping body-mind is called experiencing oneself.

Being is called self-awareness. This is called That.

Belief is about a single point of view but I contain multitudes!

Let my summers go; manifest one's current understanding.

Being is non-doing. Non-doing doesn't mean no choice. Choicelessness is choosing love.

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 22

In this seam of cliffs 

there’s enough of a crystalline breeze.

No fan needs rousing.

Cool air arises on its own.

A bright moon is shining.

White clouds are encircling.

He is sitting alone—

one ancient man.

304-red pine; 308-henricks; 145-tanahashi

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 21

I abide beneath Cold Cliff 

marveling at its manifest shelter. 

I carry a basket and gather greens and roots

using it to pluck some fruit as well.

Returning, I spread out a simple mat and eat

while chewing on some purple immortals.

I rinse my bowl in a clear pool.

I boil what’s remaining into a soup.

Sitting in sunshine, wrapped in a cloak,

I scan unhurriedly poems of the ancients.

290-red pine; 293-henricks; 255-tanahashi; 295-rouzer

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 20

Nowadays people search in the clouds for a path—

but the way of clouds is obscure and lacks a sign.

The mountains are high and the passes steep.

The streams are wide with little daylight.

Green mountains rise before and after.

White clouds stretch west and east.

But if one is truly looking for the way of clouds,

it’s here in the space of open sky.

255-red pine; 256-henricks; 69-watson; 244-tanahashi

Direct Tao

Here's my latest hottest take: the monolith in 2001 represents duality. The monolith is the birth of the binary. If there's a one then there's a zero. Dave, fast forward to the age of nanotech.

But nonduality is one being nothing. So the monolith is misunderstood. It was believed and not received as a gift to see through. Thus, we expel ourselves from paradise daily.

The intent of evolution is self-awareness, but in the act of chopping wood and carrying water, I discovered the fire of death. (Ever since I started using a fountain pen for writing, I have ink-stained hands and I like it.)

This is the 39th night of the 40 days of summer. Soon there will be purple loosestrife! The hardest part of my conditioning is thinking there are others, not knowing everyone at best is my projection.

Footnote. Love is not projection. Love is universal being. But too often it is filtered by the coloring of thought. O empire of scientific materialism, how do I know thy great intent?

of an evolutionary universe is self-awareness? Because I am. Question everything. Goddess is love. It's all about imagination. Imagination is another name for seeing through.

Remember. No healing. no growth. The so-called ego is not a bad guy. Seeing through the world is Self-awareness 101. Ego wants to be the bad guy. Believing right and wrong reinforces all the webs we weave.

Look, give the sense of ego half-a-chance. It's like the tool for focusing one's attention toward self-awareness. If not for love, I'm not self-aware. So always love the one you're with.

Nothing is wrong unless you think it is. Nothing is right, either. Everything is as it is. Self-awareness is the name of my best myth. The left is collective. The right is individual. 

Love and wisdom is the heart of nonduality. Butterflies! Gypsy moths? It's all about my point of view. Imagine that. It is as it is and all shall be well. That's easy for me to say.

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 19

A thousand clouds and ten thousand streams—

among them is one individual at ease.

In the light of day, he wanders in green mountains.

At night, he circles back to sleep beneath a cliff.

The springs and autumns quickly pass.

Untroubled, he is free of worldly entanglements.

Light-hearted, he depends on nothing.

Becalmed, he is as placid as the waters in an autumn river.

279-red pine; 282-henricks; 61-watson; 241-tanahashi

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 18

Since I’ve been dwelling on Cold Mountain 

how many ten-thousand years have come and gone?

Following my fate, I came to a place of woods and water

and here I stop and stay, observing being as it is.

No one troubles this cold cliff—

impenetrable white clouds obscure.

Meager grass makes my mattress.

Expansive blue sky is my quilt.

Satisfied, I rest my head on a pillow of stone

letting heaven and earth attend to transformation.

26-red pine; 163-henricks; 241-tanahashi; 7-snyder

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 17

I experience the peak of the Platform of the Sky, 

most eminent among that mass of mountains.

Pine and bamboo murmur in the swaying of the wind

like the ocean tide seesawing beneath the moonlight.

Contemplating green slopes below,

I consider the dark principle with white clouds.

My wild delight concurs with these mountains and rivers.

My prime intent is being with such companions of the Way.

  

226-red pine; 228-henricks; 60-watson; 231-tanahashi

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 16

I sit on a large slab of rock.

The valley stream is icy, cold.

Quietly, joyfully, I take in the enchantment

enveloped in the mists that cling to empty cliffs.

This is such a still restful place.

The sun is slant and shadows of trees grow enhanced.

I can see the bottom ground of mind—

a lotus is emerging from the sediment.

264-red pine; 266-henricks; 219-tanahashi; 267-rouzer

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 15

Cold Mountain is an undisturbed place

isolated from the worldly passersby.

Often I come across birds in the forest

and together sing our mountain songs.

Sacred plants flow along streams into valleys.

Venerable pines climb the difficult peaks.

Here you see an easygoing solitary

pausing by a precipice.

256-red pine; 257-henricks; 217-tanahashi; 258-rouzer

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 14

Cloud-blossoming mountains growing toward a heavenly blue sky. 

The road is out-of-the-way and the forest is profound—there are no wayfarers here.

Far-off I see the desolate immortal toad moon shining brightly.

Nearby I hear a flock of birds and their familiar chirping.

An old man is sitting alone on a dark green cliff.

Retiring to this abode, he lets his hair grow gray.

He sighs the past is like the present day—

unpremeditated, like all those rivers flowing east.

122-red pine; 123-henricks; 178-tanahashi; 123-rouzer

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 13

Your brushstrokes may be uninhibited

and physique be quite substantial

but alive, there is your limit.

And dead, one is a nameless ghost.

It’s been like this since ancient days.

To struggle now is simply pointless.

So join me here inside white clouds—

I’ll teach you timeless mushroom songs.

25-red pine; 19-henricks; 142-tanahashi; 19-rouzer

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 12

On Cold Mountain, there’s just white clouds,

noiseless, still, detached from dust.

My mountain retreat is a seat of grass.

The arc of the moon is my only lamp.

My stone bed overlooks a jade pond.

Tigers and deer make my only neighbors.

I prefer the joys of this hidden home

where living is always outside of form.

287-red pine; 290-henricks; 141-tanahashi; rouzer-292

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 11

I live alone beneath steep fluted cliffs

where the swirling mists amass all day.

In my shelter, dim and unilluminated,

my mind is protected from noise and discord.

In a dream, I pass through immortal gates,

my spirit returning across that slight stone bridge.

I leave behind my heavy quarrels—

clang and clash goes the storied cup abandoned on a tree.

48-red pine; 44-henricks; 42-watson; 138-tanahashi

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 10

Cold Mountain cold

freezing even rock—

obscuring mountain green,

revealing whitest snow.

The sun ascends to glow

and soon it all is melting—

presently its warmth

providing for this old visitant.

301-red pine; 305-henricks; 36-tanahashi

Epistle to Zippy

Poetry is what I write when I’ve got nothing more to say. I'm done with all my scientific high-handedness, political self-importance, and spiritual exceptionalism. Doe, a deer. I came for the leaves and stayed because the river.

I've been writing poetry since the 2nd grade and still haven't said what I wanted to say. I remember loving Jesus but avoiding Sunday School with all my Heart. Winter was a lonely frozen playground. Summer was diving in the lake.

From a certain mountain point of view, poetry isn't even in the world. In my sophomore year at Central Catholic High School, I attended Mass on Nine First Fridays, and in so doing am assured of the Roman Catholic version of Enlightenment. Bless you Sister Margaret Mary.

I swear I saw the Loch Ness Monster in Lake Winnipesaukee. It offered me a dime bag for my first three Led Zeppelin albums. I took it. Poetry trivia! Who wrote The Drunken Boat? I took a class at Boston College on the Art of Sacred Architecture, Henry Adams, and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres. You cannot forget such weird beauty.

Thought is the alien. Belief is the monster. Love is the mother. Poetry is the paradox behind every paradox. Judge not, love locally. And now my last poetics are the words, love, I don't know. At the sign of bhakti, stop your deconstruction. Being is the sign of self-awareness. What else, maybe a flower. A dream is a dream is a dream.






“Then she opened up a book of poems / And handed it to me / Written by an Italian poet / From the thirteenth century / And everyone of them words rang true / And glowed like burnin' coal / Pourin' off of every page / Like it was written in my soul / From me to you / Tangled up in blue”

by the time I finished writing my masters thesis in american history only to discover that the single lonely protest made against the boston associates' megamills of lawrence and lowell was the one by one who only wanted more to sell the water rights, i knew right then and there, i was a poet

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 9

The sun is setting behind the western hills.

Grasses and trees reflect its glowing light—

but there are places dark and primitive

where pines and creeping vines entwine.

And there the tigers huddle and wait!

As I’m determined, they bristle and rise.

I’ve not the slightest sharp edge in my hand.

Of course I feel a reflexive fright.

278-red pine; watson-98;// 134-tanahashi; 144-henricks

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 8

Today I sit before a cliff 

and sit some time until the mist is clearing—

a single stream of crystal clarity;

high ridgeline of emerald summits;

shadows of the morning clouds so still;

pale moon rising toward its brightness.

This frame is free from dust and stain.

What darkness could ever dim the heart?

278-red pine; 92-watson; 128-tanahashi; 281-henricks

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 7

Fly in your three-winged boat

or hurtle on your long-distance horse,

you will never make my home.

I dwell in the deepest wilderness

in a cave on a cliff amidst the highest peaks—

clouds and thunder cascading every day.

There’s not an orator like Lord Confucius

but there’s no one here to save.

29-red pine; rouzer-24; 123-tanahashi; 24-henricks

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 6

There’s a man inhaling dawn-colored clouds

whose home eludes the ordinary.

His every season is refreshingly austere,

summer and fall being all the same.

A secret stream is always stirring.

Tall pines are whispering in the wind.

If one remains here for half a day,

a lifetime of disquiet is erased.

translations: 27-red pine;117-tanahashi; 22-henricks

7 x 8 x Y

Bodies are only looking to survive. Politics is the war of which body gets what. War is politics gone huge. Love is patient. Love is kind. Writing as a lapsed Roman Catholic who entertained the priesthood until 1968 happened, love is what the average Christian cannot believe. There's the rub. Or a mystic is one who can't believe. Six of one. A baker's dozen of the other. To let samsara be samsara is the gateless gate, "something there is that doesn't love a wall." Poetry is the art of letting love talk. It took me 50 years to write that sentence.

When love believes, actually attaches to a thought, all hell breaks loose. This is called e-motion. But love is not virtual. Love is furthur. Love is unbelievable! Love is basically what I'm willing to physically die for. Without the question of belief, that would be everyone I love. And yes. Love is always at first sight. (I sweat. Therefore I am.) Zhuangzi 2 is exactly this ad infinitum. Love is the genius of the early Christian message. But belief is empire. Love is Buddhism without the Buddha. Love is.

I’m at the point where watching fireworks on TV is the way I watch fireworks. But I’ve got the windows open and there's no western wind. I should hear the ones over Salisbury Beach in fifteen minutes. (I would bet money but not my life that I heard the fireworks in Boston a few years ago. Not the Pops though.) The 1812 cometh. Discernment minus judgment is love. My daughter taught me this. Finally. I come for the overture. Ah Tchaikovsky! He was an inspiration to me 45 years ago. Should revisit.

I do believe I saw the Pops once. With Randy Newman and Ry Cooder. Maybe the Pops weren't there. It was definitely Symphony Hall though. I saw Randy Newman at Paul's Mall. With Jim Croce. This is politically incorrect. But from my experience, it's mostly parents who really get unconditional love. But my experience is admittedly quite limited. I mean I only have the number one daughter. And a number one granddaughter by the way. God I can't begin to tell you how or why I am so blessed! Yesterday I saw a picture of me forty years ago and a granddaughtervideo.

I would be dead if not for love! Her mother and I separated. Twelve years later we divorced. Love does not mean compatibility. Belief is conflict Belief minus love is war! The problem with all mathematics is depending on observer and observed never changing places. Only getting old is when I saw the patriarchy as it is. I am a white male, yes in an empirical way, but I’m no longer in their demographics. I find a certain freedom in this forest stage. Because I’m white and male of course! But Bodhisattvas are pansexual.

I remember learning the meaning of sexy—from how I remember it, my mother disapproved but my father said it's natural but unwise! I've said enough tonight for any id. So simple. Love is love. The story is a love story unless believing something else. Like Santa Claus. Love is all there is. Thinking otherwise will be the death of me. Wait! Belief minus love is belief. Don't overthink it. Deconstruction ends in being. Not believing something darker. Science is the process. Not the story!  The basic ignorance of scientific materialism is the one of really believing theory.

Look religion is not about belief but belief is religion. Belief minus religion is love. Ananda, what is jnana minus bhakti? Nothing? As you were. Some find it difficult to disbelieve. Even though it's as easy as not thinking. From my point of view. It's not about eliminating thought. Unfortunately, that way is mostly madness. It's all about seeing through each thought. Simply seeing each belief is made from thought. Left or right depends on where you take your stand, yellow hair. I was brought up believing love-talking is not ambitious enough. Love!

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 5

I’ve lived for untold autumns here on Cold Mountain

alone and carefree, uttering songs to myself.

My makeshift door doesn’t shut yet there’s calm and quiet.

A spring is murmuring fresh ambrosia in its natural flow.

Within my chamber of rock, an earthen cauldron boils

pine pollen potions, cypress elixirs, and aromatic herbal brews.

When I’m feeling hungry, I merely snack on perennial weeds.

My point of view is so agreeable, I rest on precarious stone.

105-tanahashi; 193-red pine; 194-rouzer; 193-henricks; 21-snyder

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 4

Supremely independent in the clouds,

this mountain needs no landowner.

In descending to the pass, I use a walking stick.

Ascending to the peak, I climb the vines.

In the valley, the trees are evergreen.

In the gorge, the rocks are variously colored.

Although I’m cut off from companions,

when spring arrives, the birds sing dawn dawn.

219-red pine; 105-tanahashi; 64-henricks

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 3

Breathtaking and mind-boggling, the waters of the Yellow River,

on and on without end, its way is coursing eastward—

drifting drifting slowly, obscure and never clearing,

slipping by body after body, whose lives appear to pass instead.

But if you wish to ride majestic white clouds,

how can one develop wings?

While your hair is still jet-black, begin—

active or at rest, drop away completely.

from translations: 67-red pine; 100-tanahashi; 64-henricks

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 2

Wang, the Literary Master,

laughs at my unsophisticated poetry—

I know nothing of the 'wasp's waist'

and never incorporate a 'crane's bill'

and as for metric feet, I’m completely ignorant,

and my words are nothing special, and misused.

But I’m laughing at the poetry he writes—

a sightless man creating handiworks about the sun.

from translations: 283-red pine; 28-watson; 95-tanahashi; 286-henricks

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 1

Yesterday I saw these trees by the riverbank

injured and damaged so—unbelievable!

Only two or three were still left standing

scarred by ten thousand axe-blade wounds.

Their ragged leaves had been stripped by frost.

Countless swells had withered their festering roots.

And this is what it’s like to be born—

why would anyone blame eternity?

from translations: 198-red pine; 65-watson; 90-tanahashi; 191-henricks