(No. 81 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

I was walking to work on a nice morning, absorbed by antics of the North African cab drivers who hang out in front of the Seattle ferry terminal, and vaguely listening to NPR–just your usual urban Buddhist multitasking.  Then the toll of names started, and the whole situation re-exploded in my mind.

What emerged is this poem’s three-part muse on: “things are the same, but not really;”  “we forget;” and then, the pink-foamed horror of unforgettable images and recollections.  It had never occurred to me that atomized human blood can  form a ground fog 100 feet high.

Where does all this leave us?   As a middle school teacher who read this poem observed, “Most of my current students don’t have any recollection of 9/11.”  And then, my old pal, Han-shan, says things like, “Following tales of the Immortals won’t save you.  We all die, even emperors.”  But even he might agree that moment by moment we “tangle eyebrows” with those who came long before us.

So yes, they’re still jumping.  And us along with them.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Defeated Japanese soldiers,
abandoned on a small Pacific Island,
argued over what to do,
how to find food. They fought,
killed, eventually ate
each other.

The last one
carried his ragged
childhood doll, like those laced
to kamikaze pilots. He stumbled
to a western bluff where a black
and white sunset oiled calm water.
Sitting on a broad rock, he crossed his legs
in a lotus position. His torn face filled
the screen, his gaze turned
upon some other
shore.

Each time I sit,
crossing my legs,
I practice
the same ending,
open
to the same
setting
sun.

(No. 62 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

This old Japanese “art film” (as they used to be called) has metastasized in my mind. It has never left me. I didn’t understand meditation at the time. It seemed alien, useless, foreign. Live and let learn.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

In Iraq a new orphan,
both arms blown off,
knows life will never be
the same.

What a world.

Our weekly
compassionate listening circle
takes in this small room,
where I lie next
to a young German man,
holding his hand.
He sobs and chatters
through Holocaust guilt,
his father’s silence,
and the sense that his people
are flawed, cracked.
He believes that evil
may emerge at any time,
sucking him into
a violent darkness.

A son of the American South,
I listen.

This is a reposting, after I contacted the young man mentioned in the poem, now back in Germany. I was concerned about confidentiality, but he assures me there is no problem.

Days into this awful war in Iraq, replete with the imagery of war horror, it is clearer than ever that war wounds last for generations.

Down with the demonstrator!
Down with the house!
Down with life!

Down.

My daughter advised not looking at the photos snapped during the “accidental” death of Rachel Corrie, the young woman from Olympia who was protesting Israeli destruction of a Palestinian home. Of course, I did look at the photos and was horrified and fascinated by the beauty of Gaza, the simple plainess of a death. Why do people stand in front of tanks and bulldozers, often paying the price of life? I bow to that quality in humanity.

Today, seven astronauts exploded high in the sky.
Seven skiers perished under Canadian snows.
Thirty-three shoppers burned in a Chinese mall.
While our nation prepared to shock
and awe the people of the Middle East.
All of this makes it difficult
to smile for the camera.
This is not a problem for the children,
riding high on parents’ shoulders.

On 2/2/03, about 1500 people in my community of Bainbridge Island joined a rising wave of local communities who are assembling for “peace portraits”. Old hippies and Republican housewives aplenty–all convinced that our country is preparing to badly screw its karma.