1/4/19
Before meditation:
You know this about yourself:
The longer you sleep and pull the covers
The more difficult it is
To wake up.
When the cavemen needed berries did they worry
About what would happen next?
This seems logical, seems
A thought prepossessed by the head.
Did they take the ashes of ancestors?
I have my father’s in a box
In a bag in a box inside
The first box
And though they are not him
I’m not sure what to do with them
Everything at once: this is what you want
Those days when you sleep too long
The grand experiment
What is your weight today?
What about the whiskers on your chin: gray.
What is meant to happen in all of this?
Why is one minute is contentment and the next chasing
The nature of the mind, the nature of waking.
Is there a way for neuroplasticity to work while sleeping?
Is there a way to go beyond thought other than sitting?
How does this crisis become realized?
How close the thoughts and the heart
A divide within, known and yet settled
As a continent is settled
As cognitive dissonance is discussed
In a truck while wondering
About the environment. There is what you give
And then there is what you take
And happiness comes in contact with every hand
When this hand witnesses what the other hand is doing
And did Hunter S. Thompson really slap a monk
At that hotel in Saigon
And then proclaim, “That is the sound
Of one hand clapping.”
It takes a long time to rid self of shock
For so long ingrained to receive scorn or praise
To ask for these one in the same
The subconscious wish to be known, to be praised
To be different
The escape of the ego to make ego known
The sidecar on a motorcycle welded
Like an old Ford truck: it would take a team
To streamline and build a new engine
To lift out the old, no longer used
To scrape away the rust and put the steel
Around an orange tree
So that the white flowers’ fragrance
Draws both bees and children
And what a mix when the new engine is put in
And how many years to iron out the kinks
When the body looks the same and the people
Think the same truck has been running all along
There must be a race that need not be run
Like pecans on a cinnamon roll are not meant for protein
Nor are bars bent for the industry of recognition
Words not inspired at all times, for in the typing
Comes what is next, a daily breath
The acceptance of waking up and walking,
Before the twenty minutes of breath you seek to ask:
How will this be done when school starts again?
How will this be done when time crunches
Down like a pulley or a paper punch
One in the same, not inspired at all times
Take the words and the essays and the lists
Take the prayers for removal of judgement
Take direction each day and realize that there has always been
A golden thread pulling through behind you
Connecting all that has happened together.
Need not a bullhorn or a beacon for weather
Go outside and one step at a time, watch as what grows
Gives life to the birds and butterflies
And know that this is enough
Making soil
Making life
Breathing
The ashes a battle
For you know they are not him.
They are only a representation
And you feel you did not know him well enough
Even in this: selfishness
All of the thoughts return
For what you would want done for you?
Your dad may not want to be spread around a persimmon tree
Your dad may not want eaten by worms.
In the hot cavern of a room below the earth
You see him wearing what he wore
The day they took him in
You knew the soul inside the body was gone long before the last breath
He stuck around for your mother
He moaned when the grandchildren said goodbye
You touched his soft neck
You said, “We will take care of mom.”
And what does that mean? How is that done?
With love.
Without judgement.
Without the need for her to worry.
Maybe this is part of why the covers remain
Past ten o’clock in the morning
On a Friday
While outside there is work to be done
Branches to be returned to the earth
The death of what has grown to give life
To the soil, the parts that have been taken
Awakened to the notion that nothing is perfect
Yet all is perfect and this is where
Cognitive dissonance fits
This is where off come the blankets
This is where you still do not know
Where dad’s ashes belong
Yet in all of this, you are getting
A little more accepting of when
People say Mom or Dad
Rather than my mom or my dad
You are letting people be who people are
In this tenth year of freedom comes love
Love for: no matter what
Love for: without need to judge
Love for not knowing
Love for new beginnings
Love for repetition
And problems and parrots and falcons
Along the highway in Iowa,
A new day, a firehose
A wake up call and a radio
A signal
A bat
Leavened and unleavened bread
After:
The rush to get somewhere or to get something
Done. While there is yet time
Seems to be what is foremost, what
Fills the caverns and recesses
When letting thoughts know they are unwanted
In the moment only what is before me
And always the moment and all
Moments
Are glory. The time that it takes to participate
Is the time needed
And indeed what can be seen is what is
And what will the witness miss out on other than
Worry about what is next and how missed opportunities
Put you where you are now
Though the moment knows the moment is perfect.
This is what scares the ego
If the moment is where everything is then
What work is there to do?
In this world of taxis and ham sandwiches
Where everything is needed immediately, do you favor
A Keurig machine with a tiny plastic cup
Or a bean grinder and a Bialetti?
Nothing is certain save platitudes and this blue sweater
Nothing is perfect save for everything, for the moment a seed
Bursts through, for the moment a stem turns from green
To woody, a moment when this wood becomes brittle and breaks down
And spiders inside her thank god for the warmth.
You say spiders don’t speak and this is only hyperbole?
Witness a ball of them and then make the same statement.
Feel the vibrations of the entire universe
Sense the pain of a dog long after
You can no longer hear the sound of the sirens
High and mighty you come as a human
When truly you need be humbled by the communication
Crows outside the door, high atop wires you constructed
To communicate; they do not need what you need
They need only presence
A birthmark, the hallmark of all sentient beings
The computer keys like a piano you play
Without music, man knows no gain
For in the windfall, you trust that which will come
For you are only a vessel, you are only what is next
And if you did not sit and let this happen
You would be doing a disservice to god and man
For the pond where a miniscule amount of fish lived is the pond
Where you will drop pellets meant for a turtle
And see if the older goldfish know the difference
But what if they become tamed and dependent?
What if these goldfish become more like humans
Disconnected to the water and dependent upon the hand?
What if all of these questions are meant for a later answer
For a future date, for you to record by sitting?
What if snow was only the ocean? What if
You could stop for a moment and let one flake
One day
One state of grace
Touch your lips
Without becoming
Without meaning
Without division and intervention
One kiss of cold
In one state, all alone
Done without relish
Without telling
A snowflake fallen from up above with
A message. To become a present.
This then is what happens to a man that goes
In and out of ego, drifting between
The witness and what is being witnessed:
The difference between man and god
Between muse and thought
This is real. This is what the ego will call hack
Will say that man made this, that woman gave this
When the truest nature has been touched with wonder
Has been blessed and at the same time
Has addressed that what pours forth, in the best moments,
Does not pour forth from the mind, rather
The heart aligned with god and the moment
You feel against your bare feet when you sit
Ankles against thighs, eyes half open:
This is what the vessel does: this is the old Ford
Before meditation: the revving of the engine
The jumping of the gears
Along the highway, god takes the wheel.
There is no thought
A floating almost
A door closed where it matters not
Who comes inside because you are not your thinking mind
And the inspiration that comes is not you either
For you are the silence, the ashes, what can be seen
Through the stem of glasses
Varied dances of butterflies risen to the night
Tank and the Bangas most inspired moments:
Her roller coaster, her vulnerability
The way the state of heart makes you cry and laugh
At the same time
A forum that would not come without sitting down.
This gift of twenty minutes
Of the way things really do come in threes
Of touching not everybody, but somebody
And one will never know unless one does
What one does is
Up to you
Even when the covers are heavy,
Even in a world where they now make
Weighted blankets
To hold you
To cover you
To be like a dog you do not need
To walk. Get off the bed and step outside
Awaken to the day like bare feet
On an Iowa driveway in winter. 
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