Dick Allen Verse-Virtual 2017 August

August 2017

My two most recent books are Zen Master Poems (Wisdom / Simon & Schuster, 2016) and This Shadowy Place: Poems (St. Augustine’s Press, 2014). The latter received the New Criterion Poetry Award for books concentrating on traditional poetry forms. I was the Connecticut State Poet Laureate from 2010-2015. Now, my wife and I quietly write poetry by the shores of Thrushwood Lake, in Connecticut, and struggle daily to banish politics from our heads. Website and weekly blog: <http://zenpoemszenphotosdickallen.net>

Old Zen Master

I never in my life before
became aware
egg shells are so light,
said the Zen master,
holding the shells of two eggs
in the palm of one hand.
Why, they’re almost
as light as a Crayola mark.
Even when I move my head,
if I wasn’t looking,
I doubt I’d know they were there,
and if this is so, what else
might I have missed,
like the tea-kettle whistle
at the end of the sound of “Yes,”
low-lying hills in the distance,
how the sky fits into them
like one hand pressing
into another,
the smell of a cloth bag filled
with quarters and dimes,
and at my age, how silly,
how splendid,
to still be discovering this.

Zen Master Poems (Wisdom, Inc., 2016)—slightly altered version

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