Big Day, Quiet Poems

Last updated on: January 20, 2009 at 7:11 pm by Dosho Port

Here are some quiet poems to mark the end of the first day with an African-American President. He has already made a big difference in the lives of many young people I know.

So here’s Stonehouse from The Zen Works of Stonehouse: Poems and Talks of a Fourteenth-Century Chinese Hermit. He’s still making a difference about 700 years after his death, not only through one of his successors who invigorated the Korean dharma world, but through this recent translation of his work by Red Pine.

Standing outside my pointed-roof hut

how much space do you think is inside

all the worlds of the universe are there

with room to spare for a zazen cushion

I mediate alone in the quiet and dark

where nothing comes to mind

I sweep the steps when the west wind is done

I make a path for the moonlight

Now that I’m old nothing disturbs me

I’m asleep on my cot before the sun sets

dreaming unaware who I am

until the new moon lights the plum blossoms