office moon rise

enclosed in bricks and mortar
under the yellow electric glow
of our modern office sun
the day slipped away
in a flurry of emails

then in the distance
the moon rose over the horizon
ghostly white
in the fading pink of day

and slowly we all stopped
and came to the window to watch
transfixed by its simple beauty
shaken from our busy stupor
for a moment
the time clock stopped ticking
the keys stopped tapping
and the world was real again

crocus

I would like to go
as the red crocus
a burst of colour
vibrant
petals caught in the wind
the flaminco dancer's skirt
swirling around her ankles
as she commands the floor
the music ends
breathless
they flutter to the ground

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~

(Words From Under the Words: Selected Poems)

Link

Nembutsu

Among all living things
mountains and rivers,
grasses and trees,
even the sounds of blowing winds
and rising waves -
there is nothing
that is not the nembutsu

-- Ippen