Happy Passover!
From my collection, Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin.
Every Passover I bake matzah.
I wait until there is
Nothing left to do,
I wait for the lull
In the torrent of business and busyne…
Source: Passover and the Industrial Revolution
Letter of Resignation
(On my third reading of Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse)
Vasudeva,
Is it really necessary
We live in this hut together?
Isn’t it enough
I gave you my clothes
For the privilege of tending oar?
Can I only find myself
In the eternal now of the river
Always flowing, but never the same?
Must I sit under that tree
For an entire week to find myself?
After a week, I should have found my navel by now.
Must I sit there to
Defeat my demons? Afterall, they are
At my heels no matter where I happen to be.
The lotus
Grows from mud, I know,
But I want a bath and clean soft towels.
Why can’t I find myself
In a club somewhere,
Meditating in the beat and the groove?
What about the
Constant flow of people and machines,
The never-ending now of the ever-changing traffic?
Why can’t I
Subdue my demons
Over a great meal or between olive thighs?
I resign.
Besides, Vasudeva,
You snore horribly.
If I had been brought up with the metric system
I could hold an orange in my hand
And tell you how much it weighs in kilograms.
But I was taught with pounds and feet
And I can tell you how much a whole bag of oranges weighs,
Just about,
Or look at a board and give you the measure of it.
But how many meters it is?
How much the orange weighs in kilograms?
I’m lost. Dumb.
Right in front of me,
Any guess as good as another.
Love, I think—
Love is measured in metrics,
Or some other unit.
I can look at it,
Heft it.
No matter.
Ask me how much I love you:
I cannot say.
I can only look at you,
Sigh,
And trust it can also be measured
In those sighs and desires, and hope
You do not ask.
Sometimes one leaf
Will wave, oscillate.
A perfect repetition
again and again.
A dancing leaf machine,
Just the right shape,
Weight, tilt and wind—
Bent back by breeze,
Pulled forward by the
Spring of the stem
Twisted tight,
Bent back by breeze,
Twisted tight again—
Leaf and breeze in
Harmonious twist
And spring, twist
And spring, twist
And spring.
That can go on
As long as the breeze
Remains constant.
External forces,
Internal reactions,
Cause and effect.
Sometimes just one,
One leaf in an entire tree,
Waves. I imagine
It looks at the others
hanging still, and wonders
Why it is the only one
That has chosen to dance.
This is what I have. The Zabuton is very impressive and excellent at keeping the draft from coming under the door. The zafu makes a great hassock for little people or a tiny table for pretend tea parties.
Some time ago, I purchased a set of meditation cushions. A zafu and a zabuton. The zafu is a small puff-shaped cushion to sit on. The zabuton is like a small futon on which the zafu sits so your legs and feet are off the floor for better circulation, and for cold seasons. This makes meditation much easier. These are used largely by Zen practitioners, but in the Western culture where there is a synthesis of Buddhist traditions creating what is often called the Fourth Wave or Engaged Buddhism, it is not uncommon to see them used by many practitioners whether or not they identify as Zen.
I got these from The Monastery Store, a Buddhist gift and supply company that sells mainly through a catalogue. The Zafu is half kapok, very soft, and half buckwheat hulls, formable but solid, separated side by side, one half each. I sit half the time cross legged, leaning against the solid side and my more tender parts over the soft portion. The other half of the time I sit seiza, on my knees, basically, supported by the zafu, the zabuton making a soft place for my knees and ankles.
That means I have sat each way twice.
Last year, for my birthday, I bought a burnt orange cover for it. It looks great. In my office, where I sit next to it working.
I live alone. I have no excuses. I do meditate. I just never go and sit on it. I never use it. But it isn’t like it sits unused, No.
My dog loves it and gets much more use out of it than I do.
This is not an unusual story. My dear friend Lisa has one too, given to her by a close friend. It is well used. Just never for meditation.
It sits in the corner of her bedroom. Her cat gets much more use out of it than she does.
It seems silly not to use the zafu and zabuton. And it is possible you may have one as well, so, since it is also possible, if you do, that yours isn’t being used for meditation either, here are some other great uses for that meditation cushion.
Or you could just use it for meditation. I know. Stop laughing.
When I am alone at night,
When I go to bed,
In my head,
I disperse my goods.
I write notes,
Letters, long, detailed.
I imagine deep long rest,
Wonder if I’ve had enough.
When I am alone at night
I roll myself against the walls,
Scratch, stretch,
Rub, rock,
Hunger for sensation,
Pray for contact,
Want for touch,
Wonder if I’m here long enough.
When I am alone at night
I fail to create ambitions.
In my head,
I disperse my goods,
I write notes,
Look at bottles,
Estimate pills,
Wonder if there are enough.
When I woke this morning, I was afraid I could not write. I felt it was gone. It, whatever that is, felt absent. But during the day’s discussion, in the three minutes between classes, in moments during planning, the topic of poets came up. I found the poem “We Bring Democracy To The Fish,” by Donald Hall. Don’t blame me for the way the title is capitalized – blame Donald. Anyway, he was Laureate until that poem was published. Then he was Poet Non Grata. He and the Dixie Chicks hung out together looking for work.
Distressed Haiku had this line: “I finished with April/halfway through March.” His wife, the poet Jane Kenyon, had died in the month of April, 1995. That line. That one line. I have said that myself, nearly word for word. And I was writing again. But would I ever write of anything else?
I ask that, yet I have. I have. But, time and time again, I return to it. Why? Because one doesn’t go on. One doesn’t heal. One continues, with the wound. With the weight. One may be happy, one may be loved, and one may be content, one may have a wonderful life. I certainly do. But that is still there, because it is part of our lives. For those in this “club we’re in that I wouldn’t wish anyone to belong to,” as a friend of mine put it, one doesn’t go back to the old way of being, but creates a new normal around the space.
Everything is made of space. So, I guess, I’m still writing about everything. I guess.
Halfway Through March
It is second period.
I have been discussing
Poetry with Mr. Wolf.
Poets, appreciated but
Never paid well,
Never paid attention to,
Paid heed, respected,
Honored, yes: the Poets Laureate
Paid, at first, in wine.
Chaucer paid in
Gallons of wine.
Name bridges after them,
Put up markers roadside,
Have them inaugurate
The president, but don’t
Pay them enough to
Leave their teaching posts
So they can develop
Their craft without
Daily worries of bills due.
The discussion moved to
Donald Hall. One year only
He held his post.
He published
“We Bring Democracy To The Fish.”
So long and thanks for all that.
But now it is period three,
Donald Hall is in my brain,
So I am reading.
Students working,
Teacher reading, because
I can barely think
Anything else.
I didn’t know
He lost his wife.
Twenty-six years,
Cancer comes and
She goes.
I had always pictured him
Alone. Solitary, New Hampshire
Snow. Writing.
But he wrote of
Her leaving and
What was left,
He wondered if he
Would ever write of
Anything else.
Here, listen to his
Distressed Haiku:
“Will Hall ever write
lines that do anything
but whine and complain?”
Here is the Universal.
Here is the experience
Of the creative. Of those
Who take everything
Of their lives, of their
Surroundings,
Turn it into something
To understand.
Make the internal life
External, visible, palpable.
Make something with
No hands reach out,
Shake you, shock you,
Leave you thinking,
Understanding what you
Did not understand before.
Make the solitary
The common experience.
Remind me
I’m not the only one.
Adam Byrn Tritt 