The Stream-enterers

"According to the story, by simply hearing these words, which to our ears may hardly seem inspiring, Sariputra gained the first stage of insight into nirvana and became a stream enterer." – Lopez, The Story of Budhism










It is not always the new trail that I find all that is remarkable.
There is that, too, new adventure upon new adventure,
some new scene upon the mind I walk with hope of the new.
Today we parked along the upper ridges of Picnic Point,
a spit of a peninsula which overlooks the other side of Mendota;
the water all around so high that the green waves crashed
inside the usual hollows of walkable trail and new trees
were under water, new waterlogged stumps, new leaves jewels.
We made it in under the curves of the Frautschi Point trail,
something of a winding lair of dark muddy trail curves,
our own footprints temporary relics to behold on our return.
Where were we? Had we every truly been here overlooking
the swollen lake as this before or was this a new creation?
I could have sworn that the last time we walked through
my mind had been nothing more than a television of serpents,
as the news and the loud mouths had gained foothold there.
I thought of the Buddha and his following sangha,
walking from village to village for forty years learning
anew the same people who they had known for centuries,
and braided fresh eyes to a trail home right where they stood.

On the Yahara 

"It's me–Mama, Mama said. I opened up and she's there with bags and big boxes, the new clothes and, yes, she's got the socks and a new slip wit a little rose on it and a pink and white striped dress. What about the shoes? I forgot. Too late now. I'm tired. Whew!"
– Cisneros, House on Mango Street







Dad said two weeks ago that all this water was about to recede. I asked him what recede meant, even though I think I knew all the while, because who wan't saying the same thing all around the neighborhood? It had been well over a month. I'd take ol' Blue with me (or try I really should say) across the street and up onto the bridge where we could see where the water had crept up way over the big rocks. That's where our trail was for dog walking. Now we had to walk along the street on that end. I learned that recede was on the minds of al the neighbors. Their own houses were along other streets close and they wanted it to go away.

I told dad right then that I didn't want to go to school again on monday. "What else are you going to do my child," he would say in his kidding voice, but I meant it. "I want to work and take care of the dog, and listen to the neighbors about receding and help. Maybe they would pay me?" Oh, I had visions of it all, that I will tell everyone now that would listen. Visions. I saw myself right then skipping right over school years. Getting right into things, not waiting around.

Blue and I were outside all the time in those days. Out in our backyard playing around a hundred kinds of bones. Hundreds of kinds of things. Little tricks I tried to teach her, why not. I had visions of being a pet professional. Could I train animals for a living? Let's get started. Right now. Let's not wait. I had ideas for my dog walking business already set. We watched the water rise. I hoped it would recede, always, always.

Dad was distracted by everything but I knew his heart was still with me. Always, always. I never quite knew how he did it, but when he asked me what I was doing it always already knew. He didn't really have to ask. I wondered if he had the binoculars on me. How did he do that?

We learned to run over the bridge by the end of september. Leaves were falling. The river was moving back and forth still, big and green, side to side, you could tell it was still too much for its tunnel. I taught myself to cook, and who didn't appreciate that?

The Path to Han Shan's Place

"As for me, I delight in the everyday Way,
among mist-wrapped vines and rocky caves.
Here in the wilderness I'm completely free,
with my friends, the white clouds, idling forever."
  – Han Shan, 12







We slip on her dogleash and are finally free.
There is a little road that is bordered by tough pines
that guard against the blaring highway.
What do we see ahead but the hope of open road?
A few more miles and out into the cattail
reeds and hawks hunting mice from cottonwoods.
Across the continent the mountains sleep.
We walk alongside the last of their night's dream.

Some Fine Talks

"Lunch in my mountain kitchen
the spring provides the perfect sauce."
     –Stonehouse, 67











Sept. 24


And so we had a fine talk about ideas of reciprocity.
What is such a word it sounds too close to legal.
It is not. It is not bound by permanent scratchings
of some other men in some other city some other era.
As I open the door I overlook a back channel
of a long river that feeds into the Mississippi.
I know that lines that we have created to hem it in.
A fine loop around the water as rising banks
and twenty boats like houses afloat and at ready.
I also know the river as a circulation of wild water.
I know that the names uttered by others named
the same thing but that they all flowed over earth.
I paddle to ancient banks exploding by roots
upturned willow trees exposing a hundred wet years.
I follow the egret as she strides alone across
the thin shallows eyeing the slivers of small fish.
These are not my things; I am possessed by mystery.
While we talked of reciprocity we came up with fine
examples where we come to see things give and take.
We call it also, as the waters, by a hundred names.
It is not whether we know that I am it but whether
we give it a hundredth of a blink of our time to see.

The Path to Han Shan's Place

"Keep Han Shan's poems in your home.
They are better than sutras.
You can place the book on top of a screen
and read it through every now and then."  – Han Shan, 307








2

You should have arrived at the college earlier.
There was the placing of the bone back home
directly in the right place at the corner of the kitchen,
so that the new white young puppy could chase.
You should have taken another street through city,
this one an afternoon barrage of car lights
strung through the center of city like gaudy lace.
Oh if you only would have been patient!
Stopped there latched to the back ends of trucks
like the puppy teething against her bone.
What stirred? Looking into the rearview, nerves
like the pulsing roots lit up under shaken trees.
The sky had been blue powder for first time in days.
The fire was pleasant. Old man ahead of you
slow to turn, no blinker, hardly awake, sad.
You should have arrived at the college earlier.
As they stood in the courtyard doing poses,
breathing in the air as rose up from soft grass.
They didn't know you were coming; who cared?

The Path to Han Shan's Place

"The path to Han-shan's place is laughable,
A path, but no sign of cart or horse.

And now I've lost the shortcut home,
Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?"
   – Snyder, from Cold Mountain Poems









Lowlands here in midwest sopping green.
September rain a new gray breath every hour.
By seven we walk out to the hydrant,
itself red as any spring cardinal, a spark,
erect, unscathed by any stirrings underground.
Two little curly terriers scoot by on leashes.
Master has his headphones securely attached.
His music bright sea waves lapping at dunes.

Prairie East

"But Pip rose this morning more animated than he had been yesterday at breakfast time, when he refused the three regulation milk bones he expects to find waiting for him on the edge of the breakfast table every morning after his early constitutional." Klaus, Weather Winter







Sept. 20

The waking up now is fast and furious, similar to the old days of charging across the hallway at 5 in the morning to care for an infant or two. It might randomly begin with a Samoyed puppy bark that is crisp and shrieking, time to get going, in essence, and along with that, dare not retrieve her as immediately as it might take to hop out of bed, pick her up and take her outside, it will likely mean at least one clean up puddle placed on the center of the hardwood floor. Who needs a good stretching in among soft warm pillows anyway. Such small complaints, the ones that oddly are the ones that make a difference, while for others on the current east coast mull over their house drowned in floodwaters, or the conflagrations that seem to spur up on the west coast monthly. So we head outside at that hour is quiet and fairly empty except for the other dog walkers. Rain grays the scene this morning but it is animated by the plunge of a duck across the street onto the high surface of the Yahara River. Such continuous action. I consider the duck's night and wonder at what creature comforts they dismay. Here, along this cut of water between Mendota and Monona, ducks overwinter. I presume that unlike dogs they don't exactly fluff out in another warming coat. No matter the weather, back in the water it is. Frankly, I'm glad they can't literally complain for I sense we'd get an earful. Coffee in hand. This helps. Then it is the pup's daily constitutional, and the coffee becomes something of an unsavory sight, sharing with the scooping hand. A bus roars by, charging up as it does to the crest of the Rutledge Bridge, then bearing down quickly onto the stop sign. A few more cars whizz past in the rain. No more quiet. Poop in hand. Unsavory coffee. I think back to my poor ducks and wonder, just for a brief second, what would it be like to fly out there to the middle of lake, bob around for awhile plucking away at the lake weed tips?