Alternatives

Rather than gloomily speculating on the fate
of the world, better to hold a small dog or cat
in your lap, gently stroke its fur, and profess
your sincere and unconditional love.

Rather than dwelling on the illusory nature
of all arising phenomena, better to make some
fresh guacamole and salsa, pour some wine,
and share it freely with your friends.

Rather than engaging in heated debates
over politics or religion, better to go
find a good spot by a river, sit down,
and watch the way the water flows.

Rather than taking up arms to defend and advance
the interests of faceless multinational corporations,
better to spend your time and effort working
to house and feed the weak and oppressed.

Rather than blaming others for any troubles
or difficulties you may have encountered
along the way, better to gaze into a mirror
and inquire about who or what you truly are.

Rather than chasing after peak adventures
and endless ways to exploit the possibilities
of experience, better to follow your own breath
into the simple silence of a heart and soul at rest.

Every Molecule

For you, everything has its own unique beauty
yet you grasp at none of it, calmly watching
as it passes before you, like a grandmother
sitting out on her porch, smiling wistfully
as children tussle briefly and just as soon
make up, running laughing down the street.

It wasn’t always like that. There was a time
you couldn’t resist reaching for it, wanting
to touch, to taste it, to flood your senses
with every molecule of it, and as much
as you could, you did, over and over,
but any satisfaction was fleeting.

Gradually, you noticed that the anxious craving
to possess diminished the objects of desire,
rendering their pursuit and acquisition
increasingly futile and unfulfilling,
until you began to lose interest
in the whole weary endeavor.

At last, every molecule of your being
rebelled at the prospect of further effort
in search of empty gratification, the motive
to attain ground down, and you entered into
a dark limbo in which the impulse to exploit
the various possibilities of experience had
evaporated, with nothing to fill the void.

How long you lingered in that intermediate
zone, bereft of any natural vitality or redemptive
vision, doesn’t matter. What mattered was every
molecule of grace that had always been yours,
but which you had ignored or overlooked
in your desperate quest to manipulate
and accumulate sensation.

Now that you had finally become available,
it was that very grace which stepped forth
to serve you, revealing to you the innate
art and liberating path of the truly wise —
the rare intelligence of nondwelling,
the perfection of simply letting go.

Cookie

1.

I sit here in America with a cookie in my hand —
my dog looks up at me as if there are not people
in air-conditioned rooms devising ways to slaughter
other humans, because she wants that cookie
and they want their fellow humans dead.

2.

I am sitting on a fire hydrant
gazing up at the evening moon–
I know that there are beings there
who look back at me, innocent
and utterly unprepared.

3.

Everyone wants that cookie.
Maybe it is money, food, or sex.
Maybe the cookie is why we are here —
wanting that elusive sweetness.
Whatever it happens to be,
we want what we want.

4.

This mysterious cookie —
so near and yet so far, like a mirage
on the horizon, shimmering in
the heat of mind, sensual
satisfaction of desire,
cool flowing water
for a thirsty heart.

5.

The moon is a cookie in the sky,
the sky is the mind where cookies
drift slowly over the dead, casualties
in the cookie war that never ends,
where dogs gaze longingly
into space, so mindless
in their dog desire.

Independence Day

Anna’s hummingbird at the summer Agapanthus,
my shadow on the path in the new morning light,
puffs of white clouds appearing and dissolving,
fleeting images flashing in the mirror of mind.

Today is designated as a nationalist holiday,
a tribal celebration of political independence,
even though nothing is actually independent
from anything else, nothing is truly separate.

Pondering the fate of my given species
once caused me to despair — the violence,
selfishness, the pervasive intractable ignorance
of human animals bent on their own destruction.

Now it’s still early morning, the air is crisp.
I’m walking ahead with my tiny dog child
in an unknown country where the calling
of Mockingbirds competes with Crow caws.

Once it seemed that there was so much to say.
What was said was a fraction of what was seen.
What was seen was a fraction of what there is.
As for what is, now I see: what is, simply is.

Geoengineering Watch

He stands by a window wishing the world well.
This wounded world, a wrecked water world
warmed by a wild star, whirls in its orbit
through dark frigid space, bearing
the seed of a violent race.

Beyond the window, the forests, streams, lawns,
cities, oceans, and meadows all wear a fine coat
of man-made incendiary dust, the grim testimony
of an insanity created to off-set another insanity —
the voracious rape of a fast-withering world.

Outside his window, the skies are streaked
with criss-crossing aerosol trails spewed out
by hapless pilots who themselves fly on cruel lies
fed to them by psychopaths in crisp uniforms
and suits, poisoning their own children.

From the window, he watches the weary world
as it blazes and burns, multiple conflagrations
consuming the dry tinder box man has made
of the land in his greed and ignorance —
all for a few digital dollars more.

How many bother to pause and survey their world?
Mesmerized by their electronic windows brimming
with fantasy allurements, entertaining distractions,
and instantly forgettable chit chat, how many
still take the time to look up at the skies?

Those who dare to speak out are still labeled
as loons, who wants to hear any further bad news?
He stands at his window, his tears have dried up,
the world will still turn, with man or without —
the choice is still ours, or perhaps it is not.