Heart Beats

The Heartbeat Sutra—for Sandino,

                                                  July 2013

I’ve heard it said, Grandson, that Buddha once said,

as he sat at sun’s rising, that heartbeats transmute

and all else follows—and in that gathering

of waiting leaves, of night let go, Buddha paused

to watch the words and all they were

return to the wonder of beginnings,

then turned his hand to raise a flower 

to meet the gaze of eyes been raised

to meet the bluing sky.

And so it is with you, in the ease and offering

of your infant sleep, the same

throb and promise.

As half-finished darkness holds silent the house

and all around us has paused,

the gentle curve of your open-cupped palm

reveals the assurance, the articulation

and the wonder of the beginnings

of our beating hearts.

**

           

Silence allows hearing,

stillness permits sight and touch

and the generous capacity to speak

enables navigation of the oceans of words

that define our humanity—left, right,

up, down, beginnings and ends—where

would we be without this ?

**

Turning in ever-tightening circles,

trying to site the source of the blinding cacophony,

I finally find its voice 

to be my own—and in this startling release,

relief and ease, begin to discern

its song…

**

flowers dance…

stems bend to winds

afloat with fogs

and dew

that gladly coat

the needled pines,

got drunk

on the breath of gods…

**

About attitude

Not so much to write poems,

but to write to see what comes—music or dissonance,

though not the same, are of the same mouth

and worthy of similar considerations.

Like time, the time to trace,

the time to witness the turns the words

will make to reach the page, line by line,

word by word, the world revealed, itself remade.

**

And of writing the day awake,

watching the light come in

where none had been,

unfolding across the sill

and on to the page poured over all over

with lighted words,

writing themselves awake

in the way of the coming day.

**

there’s been this voice

--all along I suppose,

         low-toned, unobtrusive, 

a most constant companion

         I’d taken to be my self,

and rightly so, I’d say—

but not the one I’d had in mind

**

Bodhisattvas everywhere

Slowly rising out

of the swirl of indecision,

of seemingly interminable

bait and switch,  to view

through the window

soft pink petals

atop stems some five feet tall 

and perfectly still, paused

as if to wait, to hear

my heart beat.