TITLE: Sesshin poems

	AUTHOR: Caroline JOSEPHS	

	SOURCE:  Mind Moon Circle quartely, Winter 1992,

	NOTES: Poems written during a sesshin April 24 to May 1, l992



	Breathing in the cosmos, breathing out the self.

	Mist lies on the grass and behind the stage-flat trees.

	Mist comes out of the mouth in a fierce cold of dawn.



	I have an image of my body, transparent, and through it, the

        slopes of the mountain. During zazen, an image of Bodhidharma

        lying on his side, two black dots of eyes.I go home and fill

        in the other black dot eye on the Bodhidharma from Kyoto.



	In the black night, an owl calls, who-oo?

	In the bright sun, a cow tells, Mu-u.



	Riding the clouds - I am Monkey on a pink cloud.



	Hundreds of neat cobwebs hold the sun in dewdrops.

	A leaf hangs by a thread of web from a grass-flower

	An ant rides the valleys and mountains of my meal cloth.



	Chop off the top of the pineapple.

	Chop off the mind road.



	Zip zip tent skin inner outer.



	The turning point of the breath,

	where we lose the way.



	Avalokiteshvara, Manjusri, Lochana, Vairochana,

	Salivating with the juices of names.



	Kanzeon na mu butsu

	I am I am I am

	Kanzeon na mu butsu.



	In a dream I am going down a corridor

	beating a drum

	calling I am I am I am	

	I hear Akira call

	I am



	Grasshoppers visit, sleek and taut 

	on the silver of the tent fly, then

	leap off

	like butterflies with yellow parachutes.



	The trickle of the water into iron buckets,

	the smell of wood smoke.



	Words slice the silence:

	Don't know! don't know! don't know!



	Cut the black grape close to its centre,

	Extract each seed by knife-point.

	See the cushion of grape-flesh that beds the seeds.

	Notice the young grape seeds with red tips.

	Now I am with this  grape.

	Now I am with this  seed.



	Grooves of the planks on soles,

	lines lengthwise, and then across the feet,

	as we turn the corner of the verandah.

	The last sun on each bodhisattva's head in the kinhin line.



	A white mushroom on the altar,

	A parasol for Buddha.

	Black bracken.

	Consider the nature of life and death.

	Inspiration, expiration.



	Green mountains walking.

	Stone woman gives birth to a child by night.

	Spagnum moss in a crib of gum bark.

	Form is emptiness, emptiness form.



	Aussie Zen:

	Metal on metal, the sound a

	Summons for ocker tea,

	Ginger-nuts t'dunk.

	Buddha sits under eucalypt leaves,

	Grass seeds on the zabuton.



	In the river

	A tiny perfect construction

	A water-wheel,

	Turning, turning

	With the current.

	Child-parent play.



        During teisho

	Under the chestnut tree,

	A butterfly pauses

	Wings gassho together,

	Orange with black spines,

	White dots,

	And flutters off.



	Stars arc and spill their one-pointed clarity

	over our night cradle

	To signal the start of dokusan								A figure flies

	Grey robe wings										In the early morn mist

	Across the grass.



	On hands and knees to examine 

	the mouse scats behind the cereal tubs.

	Fully taste this!



	The dog is dying.

	Be with this!

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