What Revolutions

might be possible

If we might
slow
down

to
eat

our
food.

http://www.slowfood.com/
http://www.themeatrix.com/

A sponge to wipe away the past

A rose to greet the future,
And a kiss for now.

--A message wrapped in a little bacio, a chocolate kiss Italian style.

Victimhood

Must be one of the hardest attachments
to overcome.
O, the mind's a slippery one there.

"Everytime I think of him,
I feel I'm being raped again,"
A number of students have written
in their papers.

So now she's victimizing herself
years after it happened.

But who can tell her that?
How can it be told?

There is nothing more noble than a greenhorn

...who sees with fresh eyes what the
Old hand takes for granted,
Is a quote I believe Walt Whitman said
Tho I could be wrong.

I've done martial arts
since I was 7
And I've meditated
since I was 13

Yet

How refreshing it is
to go into a new class
and be treated like an idiot.

Is it really hard not to get upset?

When I found an old student had written
That I "prove the invalidity of natural selection"

Yes, I looked back at old comments on
"myprofessor.com"
From four years ago,
And retorts swirled through my head
For about a day.

Now wasn't that a dainty dish
to feed into my mind?

I felt a brief respite

At the dentist today,
Noticing my clenched fists
And arched back,
When she asked, "Does that hurt?"
And I thought,
Are these my teeth hurting?

In supernova explosions,
Calcium is formed from the reaction of carbon
With various numbers of alpha particles.

So what did I have to complain about?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/bjp/v35n3b/a10v353b.pdf

They say

the emptiness of loss opens us up
for new opportunities.

Well sure,
New things must come.

Without all those commitments,
We're freer.

still...

And in that "still"-ness,
That attachment to the loss,
Lies all our sweet
sweet suffering.

I keep looking forward

To the day
When my debts are paid off
And the kids are self-sufficient
And I've got some job security.

Meanwhile,
The house keeps breaking down
And the kids are screaming
And debts are mounting.

So much to enjoy
Today.

The Runaway Bestseller

"Guess it couldn't handle the pressure,"
My sister told me with a laugh,
As we sat watching TV together one afternoon,
With nothing better to do
Than draw mustaches on the faces in the TV Guide,
And be together.

Inevitable disappointments

There is a point
In some Buddhists services
I've sat through
When they mention this.

The first time I heard it, I felt relief:
Oh, you mean I'm not the only one?

Back in College

I would find something at hand--
A bicycle, a paperclip, or a friend,
And say,
"If I call this the name we know it as,
I deny its eternal qualities.
Yet if I do not call it by that name,
I deny its presence here and now..."

At this point, I would be met with
Raised eyebrows, and I'd ask:
"What then, shall we call it?"

Needless to say, I wasn't winning popularity contests.

Of Course

Everything is what we say it is
But it's also something more:
Timeless, unknowable, ineffable.

That's not to say
We shouldn't use the names we have
Or the adjectives to describe them.

But there's always more.

Like the space between the inbreath and the outbreath--
The gap.

Fall into the gap.

The Easy Way

I have this old karate video
That I took for my class
In 1992
That I still work out to
And I've watched
For 15 years
How the students
Grunt and strain
With forced energy.

I breath, smiling,
Relaxed,
Throwing faster and harder punches,
Effortlessly.

Then go back to my computer
To try to write,
And fester and pick and sigh
And make another cup of tea,
Write another email.

Nothingness is a GOOD thing

Two false alarms:

Yesterday a language exam of my
2-year-old son
Revealed
he's perfectly normal,
Even bouncy and contented!

And today,
on coming home from the grocery,
We smelled rotten eggs,
Called the Gas Company
And waited,
Careful not to turn anything on or off
or open the refrigerator.
The man came from the Gas Company
(A nice guy named John--I always seem to have great relations with folks from the gas company. I swear I just love the gas company. Perhaps it's knowing they could blow us all up that makes them so friendly.)
Checked downstairs and up.
Even poked the ground some.
But the only gas he noted was the
monoxide when I pulled the car out.
I thanked him and apologized,
and he patted me on the back and said it was all right.

It was more than all right.
It was nothing!

Without murder or martyrdom

Clifford Geertz said,
In summing up what was good about about his
Truly wondrous career.

It is a battlefield
And we often conflict
But if we can continue
In the midst of that
In peace...

Like Geertz,
Maybe we can help people realize
the meaning

of a wink.

How long can u wait?

In five minutes,
Another cigarette
Another drink
Another fix

Five hours?
Five months?
Five years?

Just keep waiting
Feel the waiting
Ah yes, waiting...

And if you die without
Smoking
Drinking
Or fixing

You'll have won.
Won't that be nice?

Finally, we can all rest easier

After so many books have been written on the subject,
We finally know the "subject"
of the Mona Lisa.


Her name was Lisa del Giocondo.
But Italians always knew that,
Calling the painting "La Giacondo" (the joyful one).

What difference does it make
That we now have a name?

Will we love her more?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080115/ennew_afp/germanyarthistoryitaly1_080115223809

Belief?

We think belief is so important.
But who is thinking that thought?

Does a wondrous essense of energy
Which just happens to have your name
Need a belief

to justify itself
to understand itself
to know itself
?

A new idea?

More like a "knew" idea.

It's all been done, but if it's new to you
That's new enough.

a/s/l?

Like an evolutionary leap
Finally
We can communicate
In the spirit
Of pure spirit.

Why ruin that?