Field Notes #5

A Contemplative's Field Guide

Monks on the Appian Way, Elihu Vedder, ca. 1865. Smithsonian American Art Museum.

When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots, but just paint Spring. To paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots is to paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots - it is not yet painting Spring.”

-Dogen Zenji

FIELD NOTES #5

Brittle-backed and bent
the old monk bends his head.
With shoulders like a drop-off,
the sky settles on his back

and staring at his feet,
he stops to thank the sun 

	a sun he cannot see.

𑁍𑁍𑁍

Yellow paperbacks
and dog-eared pages—following
footnotes like two hounds
	on a hunt.

𑁍𑁍𑁍

Moss-covered tombstones.
	The silent gasp 
		of a quiet noon—

standing by the coffin
	dressed in midnight black

		we chatter 

				like ravens:

	(a cold, dark plot
	to bed the missing dead).

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