Impromptu Formal Thanksgiving Prayer, 2011

We do not practice gratitude
for any other reason than
its power to remind us
of what’s real.

When we ask ourselves
what are we really thankful for,
when we follow where this wondering
leads the heart,
we land at last in simple silence,
where this moment’s birthless deathless presence
evaporates the world in incandescence—
where the answer’s plainly seen,
the questions long forgotten.

Without this spacious instant
of awareness,
nothing else can ever matter,
ever be.

What else could we ever
be most grateful for,
other than this moment,
and this one,
and this?

What else could
ever break our heart,
overwhelm our capacity
to absorb without tears
the shock of piercing beauty,
the jagged edge of pain
actual and latent
in this moment,
and this one,
and this?

What else could we
be grateful for,
other than this complete
awareness of awareness,
an ever-changeless boundless sky
vividly appearing to us now
as an ever-changing dance
of consciousness,
your diamond lightning Being’s
elaborate adornment swaying
in this steady gentle summer breeze,
sparkling in the sunlight
whose origins we don’t recall,
whose destiny remains
completely unfathomable
in this moment,
and this one,
and this?

What else could be required
to drop us to knees in awe,
irresistibly aching
to thank something or someone for
the inexplicable magic
of this moment,
and this one,
and this?

We do not practice gratitude
for any other reason than
its power to remind us
of what’s real.

May all sentient beings be happy,
free from suffering,
serene and joyful.

May all sentient beings
be free.

What Nature Does With Pain

The best stuff always starts
with a grain of truth,

be it the tiniest blood-drop
of a dinosaur's life
carbonized and compressed
until nothing's left
but blazing eternity;

or be it a thumb-sized dingleberry
from the bottom of the cat tray
that inadvertently strays
on your jaunty stroll
to the recycling bin,
slips and slides rolling
into the storm drain,
a turdish U-boat shrinking
desiccated by salten soaking
for weeks at sea
until a single
irritating remnant
slithers down some clam's
proto-esophageal tube
slipping like a sharp
and bitter spike between
slime and shell.

The faceless animals
all agreed it was hell.

Where the pain begins
the pearl grows fat.

Watershed

The water line to the washer blew,
the basement flooded.

The Awakened One’s altar
remained dry,
became an ark I carried
upstairs to the study
where it studied me,
knitted my disorientations
into forty days and nights of dreaming
in a single sleep while waiting
for new land to appear.

Everything that was
is gone.

All the old plans
are dust and gratitude,
tears and laughter;
and even those pass away
the moment they arrive.

Sub-horizon’s incandescence
hollows out the former darkness,
chips away at every shadow
until all the trees glow green again.

Breath blooms unblocked,
unburdened by brand-name carcinogens,
broad as the first morning wind
through this virgin valley
untouched by any past,
unpenetrated by expectations.

There is nothing here.

No one’s watching,
and something brighter than the sun
is rising from
a sleep that never was.

Big Sky Gazing

Big sky opens wide,
white blue and bright,
shines through debris
from a former
much darker
now vaporized world.

The mist of once impassable mountains,
dust of once dank dungeons,
gasified once great
armored fortress walls
wearing barbed wire,
turrets and searchlights—
all as utterly gone now
as Christ’s own blood-soaked
crown of thorns.

This burnt offering rises
in that column of smoke
from far beyond a lost horizon
barely remembered
let alone seen
this far from shore.

A single ray of sunlight
slams through clouds,
fractures into rainbows.

Stained glass and wine
rains down on us all,
evaporates what rags and remnants
still may cling to skin
from earlier ages when
everyone was still
blind and sleeping.

We raise goblets,
hold them high
in noble silence
a whole still minute
of invulnerable peace
passing understanding
before we lower
brimming sacred chalices
to lips and drink.

This is my blood
that pulses in your veins,
your body purified
in my open lungs.

Breathing in,
we know we are being breathed in;
breathing out,
we know we are being breathed out.

Big sky opens wide,
white violet bright
blazes through
endless blue
in a much more transparent
ever-present incandescent world.