i stumble through
the writing of Dōgen Zenji, 13th century
zen buddhist. a filter,
human mutterings pass through
from those who pre-date him. the weight
of his words encouraging me
to focus my attentions on one thing,
to limit my skewering, to gather myself against
the dismantling of our prismatic distractions.
i look at the cat
that sits behind the wide glass of a yawning
door. it is outside of my temporary inhabitance,
this house belonging more to it than i. watching
the cat in its back yard and thinking of acceptance
and fracture. attempting to do
many things at once, against the advice
of a 13th century zen buddhist, i feel
myself as cat. sitting behind a window, looking
with casual interest at a food bowl
just out of touch. if i am to focus on one
thing perhaps it is the plastic bag
i should focus upon, formed through
with breeze, its motion of emptiness.
is breeze singular in its attentions? has it achieved
its mastery of being? its is a touch
that is touchless, after all. is it emptiness
which fills the plastic bag, snagged
on a tree branch or the raw edge of a chain
link fence? it is the plastic bag blown
on the forming touch of breeze that i attach myself to,
as the cat sits in its backyard.
as i embody the form of visitor in its breakfast
bowl’d home. the cat doesn’t right now yowl
or mew. the plastic bag does not rasp
at the hand of the wind’s mastery. i am not focused
on a singular action. in empty self
indulgence now imagine myself as starry field; too
scattered to contain focal point, seeking acceptance
with oafish motion of beginner’s touch. wrapped
in plastic, behind glass, filtering centuries-old words,
in brief blossoming of inhabitance. a proliferate,
in pursuit of nothing.
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