MINING THE PAST

Middle of Night
Waking

3 to 4:30 a.m.

Friday May 22, 2020

 

Having slept most of Thursday on and off, I woke to a silence that felt absolute, given the police precinct across the street which never quits and despite that this City is more silent due to our quarantine of many months. So, I decided to choose which poem to read at the Wisdom Sangha Zoom session Tonight, though already pretty settled on "Dragonfly" by my friend, Adriana Scopino, I dismantled a huge pile of books and papers - Buddhist, garden, art and poetry stuff I'd abandoned and rediscovered myself and others in the material there.

 

Now what? What do I value enough to keep? All of it really, but why and where to put it beyond stacking it all as it was, having eliminated some garbage. I'm already thinking about the end of being here three flights up with no idea where I might move to besides just out, gone for good. I've often referred to these rooms as the museum of me from 1969 to now and so it is.

~*~

Dragonfly

by Adrianna Scopino

A blue damselfly

is on my left arm

looking at me.

It flies

to another part

of the lawn,

myrtle grass and timothy

the arcs of grasshoppers

descend with soft thuds.

Purity of light

through tall trees,

the lake gleams.

It's high on my left arm

again, we look

at each other.

Blue bulbous eyes

its long wings align

and are still.

But how can it be

that it is also

sentient being?

I am seen.

For once no part

is unacceptable.

How is it I have

been mistaken

all my life?

And a wave of pleasure

arises in me

from deep in the ground.

(from 'Let me Be Like Glass' 2010)

~*~

Looking East
7 a.m.

The day passed
*********

Evening Walk
4:30 p.m.
Epiphany Church Garden






Home
6:30-8:00 p.m.
"Wisdom Sangha"
We each read poems and shared what thy meant to us.
I read "Dragonfly"
Then I had some supper, got into bed at 10 p.m. and fell asleep.
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