Poems that I love

I was sitting in the room with Phil Whalen When he got that call from Allen. It was the room where I had served Them tea and cookies many times While they told stories, joked and laughed. It was at about the same time that Allen usually dropped in On his old friend, Just before Zazen, The time for everything and nothing. Sometimes, a memory would Float to the surface and they’d Go on and on, words and memories Bouncing off one another Sometimes sad, more often bright Then no words. But always love. “I’m so sorry,” said Phil’ “Thank you for calling,” His voice trailing off. He put down the phone, His voice soft and shaken. “Allen’s dying,” he said. “I’m so sorry." Then he cried. I’d never seen him cry before.

by Wendell Berry At start of spring I open a trench In the ground. I put into it The winter’s accumulation of paper, Pages I do not want to read Again, useless words, fragments, errors. And I put into it the contents of the outhouse: light of the suns, growth of the ground, Finished with one of their journeys. To the sky, to the wind, then, and to the faithful trees, I confess my sins: that I have not been happy enough, considering my good luck; have listened to too much noise, have been inattentive to wonders, have lusted after praise. And then upon the gathered refuse, of mind and body, I close the trench folding shut again the dark, the deathless earth. Beneath that seal the old escapes into the new. Wendell Berry, New Collected Poems

Peter Matthiessen, 1927-2014 You whose written words ushered so many Into the theater of meditation While all the while as restless as a leopard Confined to a soiled cage of his own making, Who sought connection but evinced a cruel Detachment from his wives, his family, What have you left for those of us who still Believe in prose, regardless of its author? Perhaps it’s nothing less than an open mind Teeming with unsummoned memories Of Himalayan vistas, the Serengeti, Greenland, Florida, a distant father. Little wonder that the title Roshi, However earned, rested uneasily On you, even as you sat in perfect stillness. By Ben Howard

If they gun me down in my own street someday may my crime be compassion. May the record show  from every angle  that I was helping a woman up  after they pushed her to the ground, that not even their weapons  could stop me from extending  my hand to those in need.  that I was a walking example  of the best my elders taught me --   that everyone is equal  and worthy of defending. If they tell the nation,  from the highest podium,  that I was a domestic terrorist,  let it be known that my radical act  was believing the best in people  when they wanted nothing more  than to divide us. By Michael F Dubois