CANOPY
Any story
can be rewritten.
Just go back
to the place
of disequilibrium,
to the wild canyon,
to the small bridge,
with an embrace,
an apology,
an acorn
in your heart.
Look to
the ancient oak
just there,
to the shelf
of fungi
beneath its heavy
bough and know
it is blessing you
imperceptibly
with its listening,
with a canopy
you can’t see,
telling a new story
that overwrites
everything
as you walk
deeper into the wild.
BUILDING THE BUILDING
Before the building
is the building,
the work,
the construction,
the architecture
climbing skyward
a piece at a time.
Before this,
the hole in the ground,
the ground breaking,
the consecration
of the site itself.
The blessing.
May we bless
the building of buildings
no matter the material.
THE SHRINE
The shrine is always there.
It’s right before us,
in every moment.
We either enter or we don’t.
When we don’t
it is often because we find fault
with the entrance itself—
with the way the hinges hang,
or the voussoir curves,
or how the keystone hovers
heavy above our heads.
Or even how the light falls
suspiciously upon the threshold.
When we make the entrance
and our aversion to it
the reason for not entering,
our souls suffer for it
and the place of worship
we might have come to know
becomes, out of neglect,
a derelict dwelling,
an abandoned shanty.
Our own failings, more times than not,
are the entrance. To meet the Buddha
we must pass through them.
COBWEB
The early morning light
filtering through the oak
turned the cobweb
hanging there
invisibly
into a shimmering
stitch of silk.
It was the only thing to see
in that moment,
in the vastness and silence
of the landscape
along the winding path,
and they both saw it.
Moments of this kind
are
so delicate,
so fleeting, in a forest
heavy with frost.
