November 2022
Bio Note: I’m back from the Jersey shore where Ian stalled after the storm, waves the size of horses tore away at beaches for six days. I’m awed again by nature’s fierceness.
THINK small
After Gary Snyder’s Meditation Walk practice
A Zen-Buddhist priest and poet
has a problem with altitude.
His mind empties and opens
when he takes a Meditation Walk.
In silence, he stops to observe and study.
Unaware, he sinks in gauze.
The soft walker surrenders to quiet,
soon he’s up to his knees.
He sings details in fog-song.
Suddenly a crack appears in the haze.
He leans closer to study its radiance
and falls through into the blue.
Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.
Nature is home to poet Gary Snyder.
This Buddhist priest meditates
to the rhythm of seasons:
tends a garden in summer,
cuts wood to burn for winter,
repairs his house and sheds,
manages and restores his land.
Poetry grows in his head,
he works the earth.
Words keep company
with labor, sun and storm.
In dark winter, he harvests
his writing for the year.
©2022 Ingrid Bruck
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