profisee 49 - unsaying consciousness

there’s a me here that could say—

you don’t have consciousness

but consciousness has you—

but we are consciousness—

so there’s only i

profisee 48 - four scientific unknowns

what science doesn’t know:

what came before the big bang—

missing 95% mass of the universe—

grand unified theory—

how and whys of consciousness—

six more imajins [from zuni to matsushima]

6

on the road to zuni,

i see a white buffalo—

it’s rising in the sea of tranquility

chanting—

you are the moon

you are the moon

you are the moon

7

anasazi ruins fill

a cavernous canyon wall—

thru the desert floor flows

a lively current—

a raven soars on

satori

with its silent unknown call

8

in the hollow of a maple tree

a screech owl sits silently—

it blends with the bark perfectly—

seven birders look thru scopes

just to see it be

9

down from south rim i stop—

the desert silence is absolute—

as if the sage had soaked

the world away—

and only i were left

to be that emptiness

10

a dock on a midnight lake—

this scintillating stillness—

the moon beholds

the eye of the universe—

and we two vanish

into quicksilver depths

11

invoking matsushima bay—

an opalescent peacock is slipping by

a phosphorescent dragon—

two forms passing in the emptiness—

ah beauty! ah truth!

five imajins

1

driftwood flowers blossom

in a sea of buddha nature—

on the beach, natives search

for grains of sand…

2

in the desert

there's this single candle—

all around is nothing

but creosote and sage—

it is burning incessantly

but it burns without a flame

3

there's a house that sits on a bluff

above the sea—

its windows look out upon

a precipice of sky—

when its doors fly open

no one is at home

4

out of nowhere came

the mountain—

it fills the sky with a vacancy

of rock and clarity—

even the undertaker laughs

at such transparent

presence

5

coyote is crossing

the interstate—

it’s headed for the other side

below sky city—

an attentive focus narrowly avoids

a black infiniti

profisee 47 - as universe so you

the light of consciousness

freezes into the material

and then in a process known

as evolution

melts

as above so below

the light of consciousness

freezes into the ego

and then in a process known

as self-inquiry

melts

as ice is never not water

the light of consciousness

is always

the light of consciousness

profisee 46 - that fifteen-second spot

the desire

to know what one is—

the intelligence

to know what one isn't—

the maturity

to know one is unknowable—

the simplicity

to just be

that

profisee 45 - a/0

to respond to division

with division

always equals

more division

but to respond to division

with nothing

is the end of that story

Merrimack River Nows — selected - Jan 2014

Jan 1

ice sheets in continental collision—silver shards thrust-faulting into fantastic arctic mountain ranges—a geologic era now taking seconds

Jan 6

fog, like a conceptual identity, lifts, and the silver waterway is there, as it always is, open, spontaneous, and never the same river twice

Jan 14

rain falls, fog forms, and the river appears to disappear on the way out to sea—sometimes i get a great notion to jump in the current and be

Jan 15

scintillating ice stars in a sky of river

Jan 17

sparkling high water has made this low-lying reach a no man’s land—the yawp of geese, laughter of ducks, rushes of being

Jan 22

a tugboat fragments polar vortex ice—an eagle’s wings divine the mystic currents

Jan 24

stopping by the roadside on an open bluff above a frozen river in zero degree wind chill sunshine, i grasp the raw stillness—changing a tire

Jan 26
in the wind-swept mirror of perfect ice—eastern white pines

Jan 27

reflections on thin ice—shadows and light—an engine of wind—sounds like shattering glass—the scrape of a leaf—absolutely no one is here now

Jan 29

ice floes leaving the mouth of the river like words defining infinity

Jan 31

black and white notions relentlessly swarming in confusion—feeding the seagulls

profisee 44 - the great wave off the absolute

human civilization is

just this slight crazy detour

in the universal evolution

of light returning to light—

there's no fixing a detour;

there's just getting back on the way—

before the great wave returns to the sea,

it curves, breaks,

and crashes in upon itself—

in this way of the great wave,

the wave comes to know it’s a wave,

the false knows it’s the false,

and only the truth of the sea is

.

Merrimack River Nows — selected - Dec 2013

Dec 1
hawk eye looks within the high slack tide mirroring a wild december sky and cries ten thousand miles of recognition

Dec 3
trawlers docked at the newburyport waterfront and a clear river running high tide blue back to its open mouth and the maw of the sea

Dec 6
king high tide swelling at the seam of low climactic shores

Dec 7
river keep on flowing, winter sun keep on lowering

Dec 10
first, three white swans appear on the river. then a light snow begins to fall

Dec 13
afternoon sun flashing on the first ice of the winter, vast slabs flowing downriver in the aftermath of deep tidal fracturing

Dec 19
an airboat maneuvers through an archipelago of ice floes—buffleheads dive beneath a photovoltaic array of suns—the winter solstice looms

Dec 20
ice floes riding tide upriver—loons diving toward reflections—eagle chasing eagle

Dec 24
above the lonesome christmas eve impassive river—three birds of prey

Dec 25
delicate blossoming ice like wild mercurial chrysanthemums

Dec 31
the graceful sail of another eagle, another year