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Poetry – Zazen

July 10, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

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?

Filed Under: Keigetsu CM Brown

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