By Keigetsu CM Brown

What is this me
that walks across the
surface of the Earth?
Is it like a jar of pickles?
Is it like some statuette
sitting on the table
in the hallway?

I hear that this
particular me can speak.
I see that it can curl its
fingers around a pen and
write words that approximate
a thought.

“So” says another,
“What’s to worry?
Just breathe and
see what happens.”

“Oh no” says another,
“You must find the goal
across the field.
You must get.
For without getting
you are lost.
You are nothing.”

Okay then, I shall
be nothing. I will
float across the lake
with my face to the sky.
And from the surface
of the moving water
I, like a goose, shall honk.

By Keigetsu CM Brown

We sit in silence, eating our breakfast.
The shapes of tables,
the shapes of eyes and arms,
the shapes of wooden chairs,
the shape of the walls,
all are still and listening.

I walk into the kitchen with
my empty bowl and place it
in the sink. I too am a shape.
I change as I move.
I am a shape that shifts.

I pass into another blue morning
that flows over the tops of the trees.
The stars and the half-moon
gradually fade into light as
this body, that I mistakenly call
“me,” sits down on the black cushion.

I have no ambition.
The shadows of the evergreens
flow along the brown pine needles.

Shadows have no ambition
and I listen as silence returns.
Always a returning;
a body, a thought, a cough,
a silence.

And the round bell on the Zendo floor
is calling us home again;
home to the shape of space that has
never left, nor has it ever arrived.
Can you ever arrive where you
already are?

By Keigetsu CM Brown

I purchased this little
statuette of Buddha
at a store in town and
now he is sitting on
the table next to the door.
And even though his eyes
seem to be closed there is
that slim slit of vision
that sees me sitting here
drinking this cup of coffee.
He hasn’t moved a
millimeter since I brought
him home two years ago.
There he sits. But when I
turn my head does he
stick out his tongue
and open his eyes as
wide as the boardwalk
at Seaside Heights?