Trying
to be here
but
already plotting
my
early escape
to
Denise's private memorial
while
listening half-attentive
to my
teacher's instructions
on
what to notice
I
returned to the dark wood
in my
threatened mind
and
recognized trails
opened
for a different
catastrophic purpose
were
nonetheless serviceable
even
if alien
ii
A
commute retreat!
driving back each night
to a
hot shower
and
warm glass of illicit sherry
at the
Blue Spruce B&B
silently we would wind up
the
music-box flannel Santa
on our
double bed
in the
Two Hearts room
iii
This
sequence of events
while
sitting eyes closed
against the dawn light
in the
tall armchair
the
sound of brushing
pop of
plastic bottle
seltzer poured in a glass
and
then the commotion
shifting over
from
my right to my left
the
soothing of linen
a
zipper zipping
something placed gently on the carpet
is my
wife
a
series of pulses
scientists tell us
even
an electron is like that
iv
By the
third day
a
twinge of rebelliousness
at
having to let go
of
daydreams more enticing
than
the blankness in front of me
Gary
Snyder arriving
to
give tonight's lecture
relaxes for a few minutes
by
lighting up a
Groucho Marx cigar
with a
Groucho leer
until
the thought police
rush
out of the gompa temple hall
to
tell him this
is a non-smoking
area
I
complain
If I bring my
attention
to this I will never
find out
what happens next
v
Our
teacher gives us
A Buddhism of faith
without
belief-systems
the
Pali for faith
being
the same as the word
for
hospitality
but
outside in this
valley
of
doomed redwoods
being
cut down by our hosts
to pay
for the Preservation
of Mahayana Buddhism
the
rituals of
Tibet
(Thomas Merton says
the
Vipassana methods
are simpler than the
Tibetan
and go less far)
the
great Tibetan prayer wheel
of 64
billion miniaturized
Om
mani padme hungs
with
printed instructions
Simply thinking of a
prayer wheel
helps a dying person
to shoot the
consciousness up
to reincarnate
in the pure
land of
Amitabha
When
frustated
I give
it a sullen turn
the equivalent of
years
of meditation
vi
Up
ahead in the shadows
of a
giant redwood
I
thought I was clever to discern
the
dark silhouette
of a
sharp-shinned hawk
but in
a moment
he
swooped straight down towards me
larger
and larger
then
curving off to the left
where
I could now see the fine
striations of his soft belly
and
then in a few seconds
something unheard of
he
dove at me again
he
could have knocked off my cap
had I
not been clutching it
to
protect my clenched averted eyes
remembering pictures of new-born
lambs
blinded by vultures
a
clear hawk-will
against that of an ironic human
uncertain what he is doing in this wood
one
part of me burning
to not
-
deny experience
Dante Inf. 26.116
a
curiosity stoked
not
just from love of science
but
even more from romance
(this
was like a test
as of
that knight in Yvain
who
from good sense turned back
and
missed the great adventure)
wishing to wait for the fairy-tale
third
attack of the hawk
when I
would hardly be surprised
to
hear it talk with instructions
But
the other part concerned
if I
were not an invader
just
like those other men
he
must have already seen
condemning the trees with blue paint
(or as
when a child at Lachute
I
walked in and then ran out of
the
windy pine wood
having
seen there my mother
and
her bohemian friend pegi
both
half naked)
made
the decision I instantly
had to
regret
that
this place is his not mine
not to
be violated
I left
and the next day
I
could not return
because of the violent rain
vii
This
indecision
the flight of a bird
just as my thought
changed course
recalls my dilemma
about
Denise
I had
promised David
to
come out in mid-retreat
for
the private memorial service
then
for the first three days fretted
perhaps only from fear
of the
drivers and highway patrolmen
on New
Year's Eve
I
phoned to break my promise
and
for the next three days
was
again obsessed
I will
not be there to commemorate
the
one day she and I
walked
down in the forest
over
huge fallen logs
to the
heron beside the lake
the
invisible mountain
her
faith like mine
shrouded in doubt
viii
The
theme of this retreat
after
all by now
my
general out-of-placeness
unable
to follow
the
teacher's instructions
I had
to let go
to
focus by default
on my
thin breath
writhing in front of me
against a dark veil
now
inward now outward
as
sinuously as smoke
from
an extinguished candle
ix
The
early series
of
Ox-Herding Pictures
Losing the Ox
Finding the Tracks
of the Ox
Riding the Ox Home
concluding with
Forgetting Oneself
and the Ox
and
the two later additions
Returning to the
Source
Returning to the
Marketplace
with Gift-Laden
Hands
x
thoughts without end
a
series of pulses
on New
Year's Eve
here
in the
Land of
Medicine Buddha
and
also in
Berkeley
where
I failed to join them
reading you Denise
wholly present to
the beneficent
swansdown grace of a
single night
your
breath
now in
so many places
xi
Sunlight after rain
the
wet hazel branch
studded with rhinestones
changing colors
on
which a winter wren
appeared to sing to me
a hint
of Nibbana
Nirvana
that
was aesthetic
but
when I went down to
the
darkness of the creek
(not
necessarily in this order)
the
still thisness of the straw
on the
logging road
under
the redwood droppings
was
what you
in
your doubting religion
might
have called holy
xii
We
left early
not
very much resolved
but a
week later
in
New York for the
memorial
to
James Laughlin
along
with you Denise
the
last two survivors
of the
world I used to write for
older
than myself
now no
longer here
I
found myself
at the
Met exhibit
of
Degas' family pictures
auctioned after his death
in the
midst of my breathing
unable
to distinguish
between the thisness
of the
faces in the portraits
and in
the crowd
