The Gardener
Santa Clara, CA 95051
theroot_
COMPOST©
SPRING CLEANING
WHILE CHOPPING ONIONS
perhaps a mind clearance sale?
like at Santa Clara Library
when the shelves get too crowded
my skull is as big as it will ever get
more and more stuff piles in
getting reformulated all the time
the accumulation is exponential
new insights displace predecessors
jumbled treasures are scattered on a table
needing a decent cremation
perhaps a eulogy
a period of mourning
gargoyles in mute patina
as with many an antiquity
are buffalo nickels for collectors
edible chrysanthemums
a dance of dragon flies
new year's shimmering body in brilliant reds, yellow passion
so tremulous the replacement
spring creek blossoms
held for a time by surface tension
so delicately floating
NEITHER BEG NOR DIFFER
IN DAYS OF YORE FOR SKEENING
I thought a lack of education
or at least a deficit of reading
was the relative muteness
of my meaning
until realizing that language, meant for something else
is a vehicle ill equipped for transcending itself
since skeening it
the way, of necessity, is clear
no use arguing over the merits of traditional terms
a new one beseems
or two
slithey toes and the bandersnatch notwithstanding
skeening skips and plays on sunny days
in storms darkened with thunder
and feels at home on a young bird's wings
starting her nest in the ears of budding spring
ENDLESS VOYAGE
it's a change not well understood
there is no transformation
just a shuffling of deck chairs
visited by bug eyed vessels
the last step trips off the edge of the world
as though our planet was the last word
tube worms are the last word
depths of sea besiege any usual reckoning
limits of mortality entombed
dying and being replenished
through an arc of ages
tube worms are before words
begonias in full bloom
babies screaming
a skeening of days
babies are memories reborn
sagas that eventually find words
and craft vessels for a voyage
to places unknown
THE GOAL
the ordinary events of civilization
are summed by individual lives
that come and go
origins forgotten
so that each asks another
from whence and so
it seems that we should ask each other
as though it might be remembered
whether it was a carrot or a stick
when in fact the notion is revised by daily discoveries
eddies and tide pools notwithstanding
the tide of everyday experience
carries everyone
as the vast universe lives all
not asking anyone
COMPOST
the Buddha is compost
temples, golden statues, throngs of worshippers
compost all
including me
we all have Buddha nature
everything that is
was
something else
nothing stands still
how marvelous the smoke of many fires
gathered in living flesh
we share each other beyond memory
birds in the trees
frogs in their ponds
plop!
the very water of our flesh
is our mother
necessary for decomposition
basis of endless lives
this life
with its suffering released
in compost
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The Gardener
Santa Clara, CA 95051
theroot_