ARTS: Big and Little Poetry--free verse, any verse.

[Tai Shi]

So warm inside
Love warm in so wondrous me and trees one
Back again under this post gone and made
Will You everyday offer me a branch with Treeleaf?

Gassho
Tai Shi

[Meian]

"Ghosts"

And the wind rushes in-
Slow down! This all will pass,
I say to the pounding rain.

Dark clouds collect over my home
A flashpoint in the air of time
as his incense envelopes me
once more.

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[Tai Shi]

Loving Kindness

Wind of December, end,
If December of December
Warped in yarn for,
Faster, cold, cold,
Divided misunderstanding
As cold is everywhere,
Disability, except how to be.
Disability is not disability,,
Disability is not inferior.
I found the way in Buddhist
Zen Way, Quiet, sitting
Paperback first edition
Smallish Way of Shikantaza,
Of Zen. Slow my breath,
Light wonder fulfil my
Tai Shi Go to Jukai, give
Valued light to Marjorie
Smile, not to weep, or cry.
This is hope, Hope fulfilled
For Peace and light
Smile, now clean pleasure,
Except one. If world peace,
Humanity deserves better,
In ZaZen I found better,
Study for Lay member,
Honesty, open minded,
Willing, study honor system
Ango, study, partner, now
Ubasoku, grandmotherly,
Learn to teach peace,
Erving after morningstar,
Earth, call Buddha peaceful
Support all of us all, how we
Find friends, understood.
Honestly, I was not angry.
Now Peaceful man.
Smile, smile, smile,
Love, Loving Kindness.

Gassho
sat/ lah

[Meian]

Lost friends

My heart still aches

In the distance.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[RobKen]

To play a blues song
you must sing of your sorrow
and enjoy the dance
of the end of a days work
and still the sweet muscle grind

Rob
sattoday
lah

[RobKen]

The poems I write
are all in the shades of blues
and none of them dance
they are all still like statues
till they're read and sung to life

Rob
sat today
lah

[Tai Shi]

Her Life @Work

@Time of time, clocks
On Spring @Day, Cold
Per, @imate our home
Needed, @we are cold
On Spring @Day, never
With cold @we are bound
With April first @cold
Cold robins @return
To @ice and storm
One inch of @snow
April begins @ice
We @freeze in bed
That @warns of bones
Old @beyond any
@Sitting Buddha,
What will come @1951
When @father wrought
Chevy @Bel Aire, here
Aire silfs @bring her,
Her @understanding,
This is @an hour, this
Is lost @parents. now
Only @the two of us
Together@, we have
Found @our love, new rings
Newer earrings@
Laying @boxes of beauty
Sapphire @diamonds,
Rubies, now @kapibara
Simple @designs
@Always she left
In museum@ her
Legacy, @University
To work, @life's work
For those torn @unseen
In @battles of world
Desenion, when@
Armies wrought@
She is there, @ordinary
Cracking @world
She is with @child
Now with world@
Solvens, @she brings
All love @immortal.

Gassho
She@/lend a hand _/|\_
Tai Shi@

[Tai Shi]

Now disability thickens
Bipolar Tardive Dyskinesia
Drain muscle until I write
Stops spasm separately
Only one moment divided
Self rises as illness bites
My side trunk expands
Nowhere to run no where.

Tai Shi/sat/lah=Gassho/

[Tai Shi]

Why does my bipolar
Attack me sometimes
All those years of disability
Trying to run away dying
At 71, where do my poems
Surface like ice, snow.

[Tai Shi]

I am more alive
When I sit Shikantaza
Or hold her hand,
Nothing to part ways
Unwillingly my side,
Hurts, Muscle spasm,
Zazen. I cry in night
Fright sometimes,
Finely she takes
My hand, leads
Me ever out, up, away
Eternal day, or night.

Gassho
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

Basho 1644-94


Wind in autumn

a door slides open

and a sharp cry comes through.




Into my gate of brushwood sticks

The wind sweeps

tea leaves.

[Tai Shi]

Hanzan


The first butterfly of spring

The creature without bones

always on stiff plumb blossoms.



Boncho


Although the hedge

the white plum blossoms

by the ash tip.

[Tai Shi]

from The Gift, translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Hafiz The Great Sufi Master

The Body A Tree


The body a tree.
God a wind.

When he moves me like this;
Like this.

Angels bump heads with each other.
Gathering beneath my cheeks,
Holding their wine
Barrels

Catching their brilliant tear
Pearl

Rain.

I thought of my beautiful wife with this poem who won every academic award, but she chose to take care of my daughter and me rather than try for a PhD. We were told we would not get jobs if we continued into academia. I was to study poetry, and she Mesoamerica. We gave it up, but I gave in went to another school to more closely study poetry. She payed for my education. My MFA creative writing/poetry costs $10,000, my MA English EdS higher education about $10,000. I feel sad in my old age that we did not spend more springs together. I chased rainbow dust. She worked in an office. She gave birth to our daughter. Our daughter studies Japanese literature, and she has just landed her first Japanese translation job--a book of poetry. When she was in high school she renounced poetry because, I assume, I made very little money and she did not want to depend on a man to take care of her. I know it is true because she also studies sexuality. Her mother is brilliant, and she is brilliant. In the first heart to heart talk we have had in many years, the last one ending in anger, she listened to me, "You got your smarts from your mom, and you got your direction from me." "I know dad." "You know I will probably go before her, and who will take care of mom?" "I will dad!" Later, "You know Laurel I will probably live in a nursing home." "No mom, I will have a big house. You will come live with me!" "Silly girl! no I won't!" Laughter! And, that was that. My Zen Teacher calls my wife my best Zen Teacher. My wife's name in Romance languages means pearl, such a pearl that only in old age do I see she is priceless, I am the man who sold everything to purchase the priceless pearl, and I ran to find her a rainbows, and I almost missed the barrel of rain in my midst, in the sea, in the spring. Now we are old, and she takes care of me.

Gassho
Calm sad Poetry

[Meian]

'Bird Song'

A bird flies

...a cardinal's love song

Blooming trees.

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[Tai Shi]

It's Tired but New

I grow old grows like our pine tree
At northwest corner of our home
In June 1975, slowly out of youth,

Explained the young gardner,
"That white pine probably won't grow,
Not meant for South Dakota."

Mom dug a hole in our yard, three feet
Into topsoil, through rock cutting
Prices, Contractor spread clay. They placed

Roots firmly into topsoil at the corner of our
New home. The beatific sapling living.
In purchased dirt, I paid no attention,

"Why didn't the split for a good gift
On Fathers' Day?" Never gave
Thought about trees while gaining age.

Twenty-five years later,
Branches upwards, near Sioux Falls
Thirty-six feet tall in 2010,

Why should I think in June
Such enlightened thoughts, the future
Books about Rocky Mountain National Park?

14000 foot peaks, realizing, shale in heat
Eighty degrees, never thinking change
to seventy-one. Boulders

Solid molten rock, into our climb
One Hundred feet more, lungs ached
At 8500 feet. Air so thin, dry oxygen

With enough silver in those rocks
Days of grate poetry, west Conestoga's
Another pass, not pebbles on mountains.

As we approached clear, glacier stream
Stood alone wild innocent faun, away
From thicket, dense brush, chattering

Birds, We climbed up rock to 9000 feet
Scintillating boughs evergreens;
If we touched baby deer,

Doe peering from evergreens trees
Watching as always sun rays crept slightly
Through high conifer boughs,

Mother could bite flesh, then deep
From our wounds, baby rejected.
I drank from snow melt stream

Never fearing Giardia from animals
Near glacier fed water in June.
Our White pine thrives in drought.

After my cataract surgery
The tree shakes in our picture window
With breeze great pane of glass,

Grass bejeweled with dew.
Boughs shimmer like rain.
For the first time in twenty-six years,

I saw why they gave me
That Father's Day gift, when
She knew that three foot sapling

Would grow older with me.
Mom conceived of time, my cataracts gone,
In kindergarten our daughter of play

Our bright future at 71 and 68 I realized
The tree. Our Daughter now
Thirty-four reads Snow Country in Japanese.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

It's Tired but New

I grow old grows like our pine tree
At northwest corner of our home
In June 1975, slowly out of youth,

Explained the young gardner,
"That white pine probably won't grow,
Not meant for South Dakota."

Mom dug a hole in our yard, three feet
Into topsoil, through rock cutting
Prices, Contractor spread clay. They placed

Roots firmly into topsoil at the corner of our
New home. The beatific sapling living.
In purchased dirt, I paid no attention,

"Why didn't the split for a good gift
On Fathers' Day?" Never gave
Thought about trees while gaining age.

Twenty-five years later,
Branches upwards, near Sioux Falls
Thirty-six feet tall in 2010,

Why should I think in June
Such enlightened thoughts, the future
Books about Rocky Mountain National Park?

14000 foot peaks, realizing, shale in heat
Eighty degrees, never thinking change
to seventy-one. Boulders

Solid molten rock, into our climb
One Hundred feet more, lungs ached
At 8500 feet. Air so thin, dry oxygen

With enough silver in those rocks
Days of grate poetry, west Conestoga's
Another pass, not pebbles on mountains.

As we approached clear, glacier stream
Stood alone wild innocent faun, away
From thicket, dense brush, chattering

Birds, We climbed up rock to 9000 feet
Scintillating boughs evergreens;
If we touched baby deer,

Doe peering from evergreens trees
Watching as always sun rays crept slightly
Through high conifer boughs,

Mother could bite flesh, then deep
From our wounds, baby rejected.
I drank from snow melt stream

Never fearing Giardia from animals
Near glacier fed water in June.
Our White pine thrives in drought.

After my cataract surgery
The tree shakes in our picture window
With breeze great pane of glass,

Grass bejeweled with dew.
Boughs shimmer like rain.
For the first time in twenty-six years,

I saw why they gave me
That Father's Day gift, when
She knew that three foot sapling

Would grow older with me.
Mom conceived of time, my cataracts gone,
In kindergarten our daughter of play

Our bright future at 71 and 68 I realized
The tree. Our Daughter now
Thirty-four reads Snow Country in Japanese.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Tai Shi]

Precepts Right Themselves

This night, black spaces deeply spread
Before dawn. I rise to 31 F degrees,
Is this dangerous? Even first of spring, heavy
Frost tonight. It is below 32 F degrees,

Now 30 F. Correct snow, not heavy freeze;
Now teaches me to stay warm into night,
"Not 32F in weather." Said my wife,
No one can sleep in North America.

I recline in my chair at no expense,
Now I sing praises full octaves,
No sleep tonight, so began some stars
Altered in this net of sky, not even stairs

Of Milky Galaxy correct my mind;
My tea at 5 am. I've come to blackness
Of true dharma; stars quiet, I find some truth
In white frost planted growth of death!

Giving me this partial time; rockets
Exploding up; so war can begin another
Way to rain in Texas; long orf, wild weed,
Instead finding solace in inky space.

Unhappy birds have disappeared. No
Habitat. My Buddha is not gone from heat.
Zazen at 8am; assembled, we now grow
In Zendos some slow delight. I have opened

Chapter One; I chant, I sing; I fold my hands, I bow
Chant, Sit for 30 minutes! Inky sight passed
Away, become day; released into my way,
My cure of infectious mind now yellow bright.

Again I've read Cervantes tilting at his mills,
My Roshi is Sancho in this Sad remitting way
The same is not Japanese; instructions being
To cure; I trust in honestly spring not frost.

Did save my sight, my meditative life!
How many times must I find truth?
Ancient pilgrims of Fire Sermon stopped.
These Precepts announce another golden way.

sat/lah

[Rich]

Each moment a gift
A blank sheet to choose colors
Paint your life with love

Sat/lah


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tai Shi]

Love Making

Daughter wrapped in bright red wool,
For father's work in brilliant blue.
Man Praises wheels of earthenware,
Pearls for their child's blond curly hair,
Because her womanhood is season
Aggrieved in books for eighty dollars
A piece. Voices break in ancient air?
Percentages in offering his poetry,
Nothing less for couplets in his eyes,
Laced with heavy Buddhist chimes,
Silver window Christian now his grief.
Letters of snow, single lines twinkle,
Rhymes for bread, making blood another
Care for mother's way, relentless work,
Their daily marriage never gone astray.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

May first Classic Haiku bought
Books from wisdom stood their time
Less Rhyme, ditto, then remarked.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

At Rest

Sold in planks, $54.93 cases
Of Engineered Oak, old carpet
Torn away, cat destroyed
Remodeled, removed savings

To cut Elm, River Birch,
He is seventy-two, 2023.
Three maples in front yard,
Never cut trees, weeds

Remember new clay
Afte daughter five at school
Moved from Sioux Falls,
To Turtle Creek, he's older,

Dreaming of his fatherhood,
Daughter born in Colorado
Second Valedictorian at West Central,
Then Japan; they seldom see

Books denied. His Ubasoku
Editions gone to seed,
To Goodwill, this is his still,
Ending life full of Zazen

Her childhood. Boxed
In gifts time itself stands,
To Pale Beige, morning still,
Misty ground covered

Wished another year
Home never cut away
Small 1006 sq ft space
They lived upon cut ground,

Oak floor, Wood
Maples carved. Cat gone,
Mother sits alone,
At peace, quiet, lovingly.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

All, all are Welcomed

Please write your poems here
All are welcomed all near, all fair
All solid or think not critics roam
To fear your words, bring tears

Vision comes every year, new
Old reluctant, afraid be solid
Be here, laugh your songs
Of Buddhahood, songs of day,

Dear to hearts of night, of artisans
Not dear, not long of those
Forgotten days, now dear
Bring your tears, your laughter

Light your way, light your path.
All rathe incurred, none so dear,
Remembrance not rath, forgotten
Now brought to mind, brought

From time, art is easy, art more,
More than Freud or Jung
Or Adler, or Skinner or CBT
Gestalts or EBT, bring song

Your majesty, your Loving
Kindness your most Fire Sermons
Giving more than can't, less hurt.
My mother, Miss Emily gave

Single volume, verses heart
Felt, simple I am nobody
Who are you? We are
Someone to bring mirth

Bringer of light simple verses
Iambics, Trochees, more rhythm
More than rhyme, all of depth
Or light, all are welcomed here.

Aphrodite, Sapho, Silf, soft
Women, hard of birth, women, men
Whatever you bring to your own
Muses, gone Greek to Chinese
Women. Men of Kohens, women
Teach us to be strong, or light
Of mindfulness, misused not
Overburdened life, bringer of rain
Bringer of more songs, sing
Reluctant, do ever sitar Proxima
Six Senses star Centuri, closest
Sun, then far 5.7 magnitude,
Your days of operations, therapies,
Any religion, enlightenment
Nothing to do with your gods,
Gods reluctantly, leave judgement
Every home, ever jobs or none
Like me to teach children
Women or men your pain
Your joy, your singleness, purposes
Simply beginner mind, always
Roaming to mountains, streams
Oceans, boat accrues no shoal
Crossing over together shore
You are homeward come at last.

Gassho
sat\lah

[Tai Shi]

Everyone, what I meant to say is you are welcome! Even if you have never written a single line of poetry, try it here. We encourage you! We want to see what you think of the world in poetry, or introspective, look inward, or out, or anywhere. Buddhist or not, just try a little here. Give yourself a voice; write a poem or two.
Gassho
sat/lah

[Meian]

Water splashes

from the sunlit sky

A dove mourns

In the cool breeze.

stlh

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[Tai Shi]

Meian, dear member of our Zendo, I heard your cooing bird of Peace, the cool breeze through our White Pine in our front yard

Gassho
TS

[Tai Shi]

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
W. S. Merwin
Merwin in 2003
Merwin in 2003
Born William Stanley Merwin
September 30, 1927
New York City, U.S.
Died March 15, 2019 (aged 91)
Haiku, Hawaii, U.S.
Occupation Poet
Education Wyoming Seminary, Kingston, PA 1944; Princeton University (attended)
Period 1952–2019
Genre Poetry, prose, translation
Notable awards PEN Translation Prize
1969
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
1971, 2009
Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry
1990
Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize
1994
Tanning Prize
1994
National Book Award
2005
United States Poet Laureate
2010
Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award
2013
Spouse Dorothy Jeanne Ferry
Dido Milroy
Paula Dunaway (1983–2017)
Signature
WSMerwin.svg
William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation.[1] During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests.

Merwin received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971 and 2009;[2] the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005,[3] and the Tanning Prize—one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets—as well as the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, the Library of Congress named him the 17th United States Poet Laureate.[4][5]

Early life

Merwin grew up on this street in Union City, New Jersey, which was renamed for him in 2006.
W. S. Merwin was born in New York City on September 30, 1927. He grew up on the corner of Fourth Street and New York Avenue in Union City, New Jersey, and lived there until 1936, when his family moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania. As a child, Merwin was enamored of the natural world, sometimes finding himself talking to the large tree in his back yard. He was also fascinated with things that he saw as links to the past, such as the building behind his home that had once been a barn which housed a horse and carriage.[6] At the age of five he started writing hymns for his father,[7] a Presbyterian minister.[5]

Career
Early career: 1952–1976
After attending Princeton University in 1952, Merwin married Dorothy Jeanne Ferry, and moved to Spain. During his stay there, while visiting the renowned poet Robert Graves at his homestead on the island of Majorca, he served as tutor to Graves's son. There, he met Dido Milroy, fifteen years his senior, with whom he collaborated on a play and whom he later married and lived with in London. In 1956, Merwin moved to Boston for a fellowship at the Poets' Theater. He returned to London, where he befriended Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. In 1968, Merwin moved to New York City, separating from his wife Dido Milroy, who stayed at their home in France. In the late 1970s, Merwin moved to Hawaii and eventually was divorced from Dido Milroy. He married Paula Dunaway in 1983.[8]

From 1956 to 1957, Merwin was also playwright-in-residence at the Poet's Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts; he became poetry editor at The Nation in 1962. Besides being a prolific poet, he was a respected translator of Spanish, French, Latin and Italian literature and poetry (including Lazarillo de Tormes and Dante's Purgatorio)[9][10] as well as poetry from Sanskrit, Yiddish, Middle English, Japanese and Quechua. He served as selector of poems of the American poet Craig Arnold (1967–2009).[11]

Merwin is known for his poetry about the Vietnam War, and can be included among the canon of Vietnam War-era poets which includes writers Robert Bly, Robert Duncan, Adrienne Rich, Denise Levertov, Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg and Yusef Komunyakaa.[12]

Merwin's early subjects were frequently tied to mythological or legendary themes, while many of his poems featured animals. A volume called The Drunk in the Furnace (1960) marked a change for Merwin, in that he began to write in a more autobiographical way.[13]

In the 1960s, Merwin lived in a small apartment in New York City's Greenwich Village.[6]

Later career: 1977–2019
Merwin's volume Migration: New and Selected Poems won the 2005 National Book Award for poetry.[14]

In 1998, Merwin wrote Folding Cliffs: A Narrative, an ambitious novel-in-verse about Hawaiʻi in history and legend.[15]

The Shadow of Sirius, published in 2008 by Copper Canyon Press, was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.[2]

In June 2010, the Library of Congress named Merwin the seventeenth United States Poet Laureate, to replace the outgoing Kay Ryan.[4][5] He is the subject of the 2014 documentary film Even Though the Whole World Is Burning. Merwin appeared in the PBS documentary The Buddha, released in 2010. He had moved to Hawaii to study with the Zen Buddhist master Robert Aitken in 1976.[16]

In 2010, with his wife Paula, he co-founded The Merwin Conservancy, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving his hand-built, off-the-grid poet's home and 18-acre restored property in Haiku, Maui, which has been transformed from an "agricultural wasteland" to a "Noah's Ark" for rare palm trees, one of the largest and most biodiverse collections of palms in the world.[17]

Merwin's last book of poetry, Garden Time (Copper Canyon Press, 2016), was composed during the difficult process of losing his eyesight. When he could no longer see well enough to write, he dictated poems to his wife, Paula. It is a book about aging and the practice of living one's life in the present. Writing about Garden Time in The New York Times, Jeff Gordinier suggests that "Merwin's work feels like part of some timeless continuum, a river that stretches all the way back to Han Shan and Li Po."[18]

In 2017, Copper Canyon Press published The Essential W. S. Merwin, a book which traces the seven decade legacy of Merwin's poetry, with selections ranging from his 1952 debut, A Mask for Janus, to 2016's Garden Time, as well as a selection of translations and lesser known prose narratives. Merwin's literary papers are held at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. The collection consists of some 5,500 archival items, and 450 printed books.[19][20]

Death
Merwin lived on land that was part of a pineapple plantation, on the northeast coast of Maui, Hawaii.[4][5]

W.S Merwin died on March 15, 2019, in his sleep at his home, as reported by his publisher Copper Canyon Press.[21]

Awards
1952: Yale Younger Poets Prize for A Mask for Janus[22]
1954: Kenyon Review Fellowship in Poetry[23]
1956: Rockefeller Fellowship[23]
1957: National Institute of Arts and Letters grant[23]
1957: Playwrighting Bursary, Arts Council of Great Britain[23]
1961: Rabinowitz Foundation Grant[23]
1962: Bess Hokin Prize, Poetry magazine[23]
1964/1965: Ford Foundation Grant[23]
1966: Chapelbrook Foundation Fellowship[23]
1967: Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize, Poetry magazine[23]
1969: PEN Translation Prize for Selected Translations 1948–1968[24]
1969: Rockefeller Foundation Grant[23]
1971: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Carrier of Ladders (published in 1971)[24]
1973: Academy of American Poets Fellowship[23]
1974: Shelley Memorial Award[23]
1979: Bollingen Prize for Poetry, Yale University Library[23]
1987: Governor's Award for Literature of the state of Hawaii[24]
1990: Maurice English Poetry Award[25]
1993: The Tanning Prize for mastery in the art of poetry[24]
1993: Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for Travels[24]
1994: Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award[24]
1999: Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress, a jointly-held position with Rita Dove and Louise Glück[26]
2005: National Book Award for Poetry for Migration: New and Selected Poems[14][22]
2004: Golden Wreath Award of the Struga Poetry Evenings Festival in Macedonia[26]
2004: Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award[26]
2008: Golden Plate Award, American Academy of Achievement[27]
2009: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Shadow of Sirius (published in 2008)[28]
2010: Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement[29]
2010: United States Poet Laureate[4]
2013: Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award[30]
Other accolades
Merwin's home town honored him in 2006 by renaming a local street near his childhood home W. S. Merwin Way.[6]

Bibliography
Main article: W. S. Merwin bibliography

[Tai Shi]

The reason I posted the Wikipedia article (free encyclopedia) was that Merwin is sometimes overlooked by Buddhists as one of the greatest Buddhist poets in English of the last 100 years, and I love his work. I don't see people here on Treeleaf Zendo exploring his work.
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

What is humility? Humility is to order Merwin's small collected work while realizing he is already my teacher, that in that last question I had costed, not really explored everything except William Carlos Williams' work, realizing women make their work substantial. I had understood Hilda Doolittle's work was the place to start compare Hilda Doolittle's work with William Carlos Williams's work, realizing that William's work is substantial, reviewing Roethke's work in his life because like me he had learned to give himself to poetry never "got sober," he fell into his own swimming pool while drunk in front his lady friend had drowned while had he earned the Pulitzer after writing The North American Sequence, wasted, I had drowned, the right thing for me "getting sober at age 35 years 10 months and 17 days, and 10 hours the exact moment I'd entered our front seat of our car ito do the right thing, having done all the right things except I realized the inequality of this school, a glorified high school exploiting new teachers work against the law when I was doing the right thing by executing my responsibilities, and later realizing I would have been doing the right thing with study and effort in World Literature, and realizing Hotchkiss never had done the right things, he had womanized and might have had a problem with alcohol and that he had cheated and was found out and though I never drank, had forgotten too much of the best of my teaching, was too old to teach with enthusiasm, so I gave up teaching slowly devoted and realized I did not want to be a Christian Lay person, that I had fudged it and done my lay membership without thourlay studying the last six precepts realizing the first ten were wha I had to work on with honesty and anger, and realizing anger was because I had not been honest, so it was time to go back and study what I needed to be an adequate lay member, those six precepts, and watching Meian to learn the best way to present the lay membership was first to memorize all of the introductions utilizing all the helps I needed to be a good Lay member. That was the first thing in order to admit that Jishin had something there, and Introduction to Creative Writing was the first order of business, as I went to Jundo, and I worked best by announcing my best intensions to Jundo then execute my intentions with honesty that I could study both at the same time, because I had fulfilled requirements in both well before realizing I was an excellent student well before I received my BA, and the registrar had realized I could have graduated with honors and accepted the most difficult with knowledge I knew the math required to have made up that F so fudged and gave me my BA knowing what an outstanding student, realizing that IVCC was a dishonest institution as Kroaque had cheated on hi nephew by pressuring my into giving a passing grade, tha everywhere I had been the teacher well beyond what they deserved, what I wanted was to write in the first place, so study to be a priest while a little mke up was in order, that I might never complete priesthood before I died, because I know my heart is weak and doing everything I can to optimize life, an I might complete the priesthood never taking ordination because that is Marjorie's wish so being satisfied with Ubasoku while being the best Ubasoku I can be knowing all the background as others might already know, so admiring Meian because she is an accomplished woman and following in Shoenan's steps is what I really what I want to do and asking to begin attending Birdsong to really learn, and maybe only doing Loving Kindness because it is the right thing to do making me a better Ubasoku. That is the gosal being who I really am so I can fulfill my destiny to be the best while never being recognized, and beginning to show up at Zazenkai when I can because it is the right thing to do and that it might actually be easier than doing Birdsong, and that at the same time it will be harder because it is treeleaf and yeet I already know part of what it takes to be a good priest, that even Kokuu doesn't know the literature you do, but no comparing to others, that is the end goal doing what is right because it is the right thing to do knowing I might never complete my destiny to be a good priest, so being a good Ubasoku. That is enough. I am certain this this to a close with proper transition to do right things simply because are the right things to do. Thank you Jundo for giving me a destiny of being honest and mild in manners.
Gassho
sat/lah

[Tai Shi]

I sat twice in cold May crisp
Air, beneath my window,
Much happens as birds wake
To song, life moves me into life
More of my tea, which I shall warm
Again, flavor nearly lost in Zazen

Gassho
sat, lah
Taishi

[Tai Shi]

Winging your Destinations

Arrival of daughter, I sit zazen.
Mother wonders, "Will music
Call?" My best friend waits,
Speaks of Saturday's Creation
From Missouri, your voice,
St Louis, thoughtful gratitude
Said in accolades, seas of Coral.
Forever grasping deep breath,
After breath. Companion givers,
Your womanhood in Millions
Of stars, vacuous galaxies,
Matter devoid of desire.
Founders, luminous is nature,
Inquisitive labor, enlightened
Life your neighbor, vision
Of Requiem. Lucid difficulty,
Desire pours into your vessels,
Flames in books. Wisdom
Harvested, given virtue,
Sacred bird, or empty swan,
Birds in our Maples, East
Window, child of equanimity,
Invisible are Pearls. Thoughtful
Vision of Solemn imperfections,
My insidias gift is your freedom.

Gassho
sat, lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

I have thought conditions should be stated for some time so here are conditions so stated, and remember you may publish as many times here as you like. I plan at your digressions, or an publication or a book. We may publish no book at all. These conditions apply to poetry or writing here and anywhere I take care of writing. Criticism and
remarks of professionals is limited. If you would like to contribute your own work, you can do so at will as I might contribute contents that is only in part or complete, but only if you like just your publications. At this point I have I have no title. I would announce any book, and subject to your approval. If we do we so, no cost to you. I choose a title reflecting a Treeleaf anthology, and we publish through Amazon's free service at no cost to you. You, of course, keep full copyright and take no profit with Treeleaf Zendo. This is just for fun, and we may clear with Jundo first. I have wanted for some time to represent our Zendo in poetry and writing. I would be credited only as Editor, but it would be up to you to make sure your poetry is LETTER AND PUNCTUATION PERFECT or not ,BECAUSE, we will not change it. Just copy and paste or leave here as is, and make sure language not obscene, and you provide a small remark giving your permission if needed. The only customers here would be our Zendo so any profit would be given to Treeleaf Zendo if published here and not here. We can make no profit here. It is so all money goes back to you, not for profit here-- no money for Kindle books at all--it's, your waiver to Treeleaf tmake only collection of your work and no claim. Limit is two (2) poems if published, limit in threads as many times as you like. If you like only one (1) in any publication, okay. Amazon gives back 70% and keeps 30% and of course in you waiver as you would allow it. Your copyright is given or implied. No price, and cover and design entirely with stock methods if any book. We make this a free book on Kindle, and only once in copyright page. If free, Amazon takes no profit for any Kindle! If this a project you should consider--only a consider this. Good for a one time venture? Jundo, please state your opinions I'm subject to the same rules, so there is no pay to Jundo or me; only one or two poems in any book. All of you may publish all your work here because you retain all copyright stated or unstated. My work before and after is my own work entirely except where cited. Two poems in any book that is submit to Treelea as mine, and you state your opinions here, subject to your entire waiver, copy or writing here, and any revisions. I give my permission as free editor. I take nothing, just for fun. If we do this I make mine, my work only as in my poetry, and I make any other books mine, my own books to do as I please, are are yours. Any other publishing is only in part, in my own poetry only my work. Even and any of these conditions of course apply to any writer here and elsewhere in poetry or other writings. You may publish any and all poems as many times as you like here. You may edit as many times AS YOU LIKE. Treeleaf Zendo Poetry thread is free, and I am editor of my writing, as you are of your writing. You may publish any and all poetry as many times as you like, so long here is not obscene. I make winn no changes in your poetry.
Gassho
Deep Bows
sat/ lah
Tai Shi

[CamilaDeOliveira]

A few short ones:

Raindrops

Raindrops
Like piano notes
What a wonderful
Symphony Of Peace




Let Go

Petals Fall Gently
Petals Gently Grow
In The Garden Of Gentleness
Nothing
To Let Go.



Little Bird

I tried to save
A little bird
From the cat’s hungry mouth
Next morning
He died alone
I died too.




No News

No News in the News
Asuras and Devas
Dragons and Hungry Ghosts
Tigers and Demons
Rolling in The Wheel Of Time
I Sit with All Of Them

Gassho
SatLah

[Tai Shi]

So I write my Poetry

I've written many times.
As I love flowers and orchids,
My mind is free of blemish,
As my face is my face
As I see myself ordinary
That is who I am,
I am wonderful
Plain or handsome with my
Clothing on as as I may
Write beauty, and not
So beautiful, life short
I take heed to not squander
My life, my end of life
Stiven to awaken, that's
Just me, that's just me.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

These Chants, Our Chants

I sit naked then
Dress for early morning
Summer light by surprise

Chant taken in green
Daylight surprise I carry
On to another Chant

Am I to sit still
Today I fill in surprised
Only to wonder why

Gassho
sat/lah
Surprised I bow
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

Sitting In Cold Spring

This no wondering
Surprise comes with chant
In Green Spring time

I taken by surprise
This is no enmity beware
When one sits morning

Though the sun shines
It is springtime of gladness
We wonder of this chant

Fortunate we sit
This to believe it warms
Finley our backs of blue

Oh Shariputra
This chant is late before noon
Bight to release greenery

Noise we listen once again
To spring blue chatter become
Chant nonetheless so kind

Sometimes we forgive
Our neighbors before summer
Chant in green blooms or red

Silence is not today
Intended but comes with spring
Clover and grown green spouts

Summer will silence
My chattering mouth not open
Yet diving into water of the mouth

Surprise digging brown
Loam of instrument machine
Spring workmen build roads
Disaster if not prepared to chant

Gassho
sat wondering why/lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

In case my wanderings were not clear, Everything you place on our Sangha, Treeleaf Zendo, is yours. All writing of yours cannot be used without your expressed permission. All copyright, everything, all writing anywhere everything is yours; Jundo and I let go into our beautiful places we appreciate is yours, everything no matter what or how. All cannot be used by Treeleaf, myself, or any other person on the Zendo or out of the Zendo without your permission. This is the law. You are covered by copyright law.

Gassho
Deep Bows
sat/lah
Taishi

[Tai Shi]

I learned trees silver
Tongues we shall withhold
Not greenery every season
Spring beginning warmth
Shoots into sky we sing
Of Heart Sutra light
Somber of heart
Sumber with Robe
Verse always, Summer
Hit Grape Vine of Heart
Sutra, Robe verse
As always into Zazen
Old Shaping all Heart
Sutra, then Robe Verse,
Fall that which same
Though green dispel
Zazen we sit, then
Say goodbye, in winter
With conifers dotting
Landscape Robe
Verse again to leave
Usury not, no lone
As in middle age
We simply say what
Has gone before
Winter back to spring
Again round seasons
Plods down millions.

Gassho
sat/lah

[Tai Shi]

Spring, let leap
Thoughts of song
we rise from sleep
Fill into sprouts
Except now as always
Robes after heart.
Heart always leading
Robe always follow
Blith of shooting
Greenery, one trodes
Not on green Haiku
Always with verse light
Anywhere the heavy not
Buddhas' mantal pure, say of old
Buddha heart, then of Robes
Blackened sun bright light.

Gassho
sat/ lah

[L_Moore]

Never read or heard better. Jane SAT/tried to LAH

[Tai Shi]

Death Song

May we ever sing praise,
Days of old France nor fecund
Wine barrels, bulging with bright
Nectar, not alcohol, but sweet
Juices of Earth, brown liquid believed
Loam, silt full fecund, round, bovine
In belly, brought to Bright, forth
In Buddhahood, effervescent, fizzle
Found in blithe birth of healthy
Child brought forth in difficult
Round delay, seventeen hours
Of Labor, from 10:30 p.m. to
4:30 p.m. dire kicked hard every
Vessel brought to surface with blue
Skins vein drawn tight as I stood
Helplessly watching baby's mother,
New father hoping, fortelling what?
Fulfilling following forth bright evening
March 27th, 1989. Words into brilliance
She did follow into father's steps
Grown bright by poetry himself, more,
Calm. Merest memory of strife, love
Of brother behoving him less, his
Laughter his Zazen brightest zest,
Volume of darkest realm remaining
Into journey or of into jocund desire,
Delight, wuthering height weight,
Women brightly admired what where?
Why when how; he can only hope for
Bring to bedlam not fraught with fight
Now given Buddha freedom from desire
Breath of Fresh Aire, of flame forth
Salley forth. Let be at seventy-one,
Slowly, slower, slower, to gait
Desirous of simple rest, after dimed
Masterhood of blithe words, his
wisdom of delight come to rest.
His mind at rest, resting further,
Farther asking with bright smile
What comes next. What comes next?

Gassho
Deep bows
sat/lah

[Tai Shi]

Death Song

May we ever sing praise,
Days of old France nor fecund
Wine barrels, bulging with bright
Nectar, not alcohol, but sweet
Juices of Earth, brown liquid believed
Loam, silt full fecund, round, bovine
In belly, brought to Bright, forth
In Buddhahood, effervescent, fizzle
Found in blithe birth of healthy
Child brought forth in difficult
Round delay, seventeen hours
Of Labor, from 10:30 p.m. to
4:30 p.m. dire kicked hard every
Vessel brought to surface with blue
Skins vein drawn tight as I stood
Helplessly watching baby's mother,
New father hoping, fortelling what?
Fulfilling following forth bright evening
March 27th, 1989. Words into brilliance
She did follow into father's steps
Grown bright by poetry himself, more,
Calm. Merest memory of strife, love
Of brother behoving him less, his
Laughter his Zazen brightest zest,
Volume of darkest realm remaining
Into journey or of into jocund desire,
Delight, wuthering height weight,
Women brightly admired what where?
Why when how; he can only hope for
Bring to bedlam not fraught with fight
Now given Buddha freedom from desire
Breath of Fresh Aire, of flame forth
Salley forth. Let be at seventy-one,
Slowly, slower, slower, to gait
Desirous of simple rest, after dimed
Masterhood of blithe words, his
wisdom of delight comes to rest.
His mind at rest, resting further,
Farther asking with bright smile,
"What comes next?" What comes next?

Gassho
Deep bows
sat/lah

[Tai Shi]

Largely it is not so much the early poetry of William Blake, who also made artistic prints, and other forms of Art, color, stained and beautiful, that attracts the meaningful poetry of Blake as studied by contemporary critics. Literary criticism turned its eye not so much on Songs of Innocence and Experience, which did tangentially treat the themes of remaining in the present, but also Blake's careful study of the visual in opposites. As he moved into the later poetry, the most important themes emerged of selfless love between a man and a woman. In our present arrival in the 21st century, of a time marked as 2023 years of time on an agreed point in time, Blake in the early 19th century sought to depict selfless love when one is willing to give one's own life, for the love of another. People may and can give up life when the loved one is threatened with death. Exchange depicts ultimate love to realize that the loved one might live in spite of demands to die. This self-sacrifice is, for Blake, the ultimate act of love. Life precious between the beloved and the lover, resulting in the loved continuing, whereas the desire to present one's self as gift to the beloved. This is ultimate love, to William Blake, is life itself. Blake in some of his poetry depicts the ultimate willingness to continue living for the beloved as sacrifice. This is what one pledges in traditional wedding vows, but the other might be sacrifice between two friends. When one friend Lives in Platonic Love for the other, a Love which Plato explained in The Symposium, this Platonic Love Plato saw as the Highest Love. Blake as well implied that love between two friends, and going beyond is the Highest Love, and what else are marriage vows. In life with each other, my wife and I recognized this and had clergy include in his simple talk about one for the other, the ideas of Karl Rogers in his book Becoming Partners, an explanation of how the gift of life between two friends is ultimate, and takes time and care. This is love is a process of life giving life.
Charles E Taylor
Gassho
sat/ lah

[Tai Shi]

Commentary, comments being right
Giving forth just another being let
Us understand placement of words.
Let us hear wind chimes in the breeze
Time passed, only if I could hear
And there I know nothing more comes
Of joy but thinking of the one true one.

Gassho
sat/lah

[Tai Shi]

Leavened Lands of Fire
And Ice.

So what if one knows
The criticism of Roy Harvey Pierce.
So what if one can quote
Deep lines of Emily Dickinson
TS Eliot, or college verse
What if Frost

New poetry in bones of brevity,
Has lived and died with verses
Running through his veins of gunshot,
W.S. Merwin into arteries of pain
Stemmed shunt, replaced
Intestines of love, mineral salts
Bought with gratitude, Schools
Of Liberal thought, Always bringing
Karl Marx, Second-exposition,
Best because of lines in literature
Not Poetry, mayhem not good enough
With word went to foretell
Agencies of days in hell, wonderful,
Beyond all word smith in his heart
Of Rita Dove, his shaft, not priest
Nor doctor of philosophy,
Philosophy! What of words?
Is he not a bringer of pain,
Bringer of truth, teacher of rain?
Who wishes to seek his sunlight?

Though his words worked
All his life, seeking grace
He learns no one wants his truth
Reality. All stairs into caves must
Die of dust, or Fire flies, shadows
Widening caves of stone shut up
Thy neighbor of fallen Death
Could he or she but seek their rest
Shrinking light, seeking another night
Another destiny? Isn't split house
Paid for forty years of pain
They live without mortgages!
Before caves of Song in Disgrace,
Songs of Innocence, or storage.
What they gave in experiences,
Giving up one's license to travel life,
More Health insurance, with paid

Social Security, and Medicare
Which paid one thousand more
Brain Surgeries resist the tumor
AVM, young surgeon's art, stones,
Knot forgiven fire to child, daughter,
Prophets, aunts, piety beseeches
Especially wife in health of birth.
Where do politicians come measuring
Oath? Those who take vital minds
Heart's more ghostly Bill of, Rights?
Wrong, without senate powers
Delight of bones? Let Supreme
Court seeking Kennedy assign
Peaceful Mornings, into daylight
Disgrace in Loving Kindness,
Women presidents forsaken,
All else given, you would relent
Yourselves! Those who eat organ
Meats of oysters, pray for those who
Chant, "Shall we give each day
Sustenance, perhaps fatherhood?"

To open Aorta, keeping legs,
Shut, keeping the spirit of guts,
Each other, each other's pace.
Now in peace. Go into medicine,
Walk into open lines poetry,
Divorce her Gifts of God
Misplaced man shunts off window
Marylin's devotion, galaxy of Agape
Ignorance of schools without

Survival in villages, thousands
In pain in lands of global warmth.
He has found peace on Dogen,
Sitting daily, out of scholarship
Out of his own stains, he is free
Of curses because he sits, has
Precepts in his worth, does good
Now gives where they thought
Him tough, he is soft flesh,
Devotion to his own family,
Out of hate gone into atmospheres
Into stuff made of tranquility,
Overflow of verses graced
In willingness, in honesty,
His life is free, Ubasoku
Lasts forever, first discovered
Gift of love without Christian
Requirements, a gift of tranquility.


Gassho
Deep bows
Lend a Hand
sat two half hours,
Tie Shi
Calm poetry.

[Tai Shi]

My Love for her orbits
Furthest star, galaxy
Deep into black of space.
I shall never leave,
For I am large
Among her seven moons
Upon a sea of glass
Molten in my double star;
I am a life of silica
Withstanding heat,
While masses larger
Sink below my ocean
Winning fish of delightful
For alien forms singing
Sting rays which whirl
In periwinkle bonds,
Of play into nets carbon
Bonds, caught in human
Feeding traps, human
Unlike Watching
The largest moon descend
Oh, horizon into Astra
Field, more hence; neutron
Dance before space
Beneath a rapt window
Where ships bound green
Heaving to the largest moon
Of growing Single meaning
Division into days organized
More than haze of white gas.

Gassho
Tai Shi
sat/lah

[Tai Shi]

The Outer Rim

Just my love and I see
As greenery, as we are,
We may be of reverie
Here is my memory of seas
Flowing deeply, Great Dogen.
I am flesh, oh we part days
Of old, of heart giving more

To all who look into night,
To birds who see
With bright being
Magnificently given
Life beyond who track
Optical sky,
Oath decries
Their current deep
Fleet from food

Majesty of poverty
Of water, of sand,
Who can be
Washed in pools?
Anemia, more
Opening Conversions,
Dalliance to wonder,

To sound roar
Off open water,
Wisdom earned.
Every door, open
Water, thin ice caps
Supplier of crowns
Of desire, never touching

Those fleeing Greed
Avarice, stolen life
Of wonder into Precepts,
Accidental hard shore
Who gives life, never
Takes? Forest burns,

From death, there will be
Children, more horrified,
Suppliers of beauty,
Truth beauty natural
As Japanese round earth
How trees grow,
To see, another earth.

Touch, looking up
At morning star, at fording
Pacific trench of Asia, of North
America, Africa, European
Channel across England, France
Russia, Black Sea, War
Reminder, children lost

Little ones who we lovingly
Save from peace, language
Reaching those reluctantly
From radio telescopes

Big Bang Theorems,
Perceived Homilies,
Recite love,
Buddhist Nuns flee,
Soto Chant sounded
Like Star Voyager
Outer Rim escaped
Humanity gone to

Outer space our
First traveler interstellar
Creation of gravity
We realize far-flung
Majesty of nothing.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Lavender]

The greatest pains
Come to those who least fear them,
And none are more fearless
Than those who know not

To Know is to know
To feel is to feel
Perhaps it is best
Just to forget the whole deal

[Tai Shi]

Hello Lavender, your doggerel winds deep into the state of the tower leaning to the left. Come write again, and this time try an image of lake or grass. We hope to hear from you again.
Gassho
sat/lah

[Lavender]

The Moon rest on the tip of his finger,
Like morning dew on earthen blades.
“Where does dew end and grass begin?”
I ponder on the lakeside.

But as I sit
And look into the moonlit waters,
All I see is the moon
My face just beneath.


(Earthen blades? Gag me with a spoon.)

[Lavender]

The stray gnaws on rot,
And seldom tells the difference.
Between mutton and slop
There is little preference.

A light wisp of apple,
A strong scent of meat
The stray finds himself
At the end of his street

Into the window he leaps
But none within shriek
They treat this strange beast
With a lovely roast feast