Last Poem In Poetry Week (But Will Do This Again)

Finished a one-day sitting a few hours ago. Dog Bodhi sat through dokusan in the student seat along with each student, sometimes sleeping, sometimes starring wide-eyed at me. I’m sorry (but not surprised) to announce that he seems no more enlightened now than before.

I’ve got some comments on a couple Dogen dharma discourses that are in the oven and will be served up here as soon as I find a fork to stick ’em with.

In the meantime, here’s a prose poem that I’ve used often in the intention class that I occasionally teach. It’s by a Duluth poet, Louis Jenkins, also a favorite of Garrison Keillor, so maybe you’ve heard of him too.

Indecision

People died or moved away and did not return. Things

broke and were not replaced. At one time he had owned a

car and a telephone. No more. And yet somehow, things

did not become more simple. Then one night, roused from

sleep he stepped out naked into the below zero winter night,

into the clear midnight and 20 billion stars. Nothing stirred,

not a leaf, nothing out there, not the animal self, not the

bird-brained self. Not a breath of wind yet somehow the

door slammed hut locking behind him and knocking the

kerosene lantern to the floor. Suddenly the whole place

was afire. What to do? Should he try to make the mile-long

run through the woods over hard-crusted snow to the nearest

neighbor or just stick close to his own fire and hope that

someone would see the light? The cabin was going fast.

Flames leaped high above the bare trees.

Last Poem in Poetry Week (But Will Do This Again)