Repetition


After our morning meditation,
I am clear enough
to think to share with you

that I hold my hands upwards,
palms up, close together,
in my lap, so that I can be

open to receive grace,
and then explain from my Zen
practice, years ago, I was

trained to hold my hands
differently, in a kind of mudra,
thumbs barely touching,

as if to produce the space where
the spark of enlightenment might
enter through into the ardor

and discipline of practice;
noting also that I focus
my breath by repeating

an inner prayer that I recite
for you. You nod your head
and thank me, and I cherish

that moment, its clarity,
the satisfaction of knowing
it occurred, before it passes

as all moments pass,
by elapsing into the nebulous
opacity of our forgetting,

reminding us both of what is
reiterated in the inherent gift
repeating itself every morning.



Grace

You call out
from another room
that you see the vixen
and before I can locate

where she is
she is halfway down
the tree break, alternately
practicing stillness

and speed before
she slips into
the bracken, which is how
grace catches us,

which is how she defines
the moment itself,
by leaving us with
her streak of red

etched in our memory,
a swath the color of fire,
an opening into
a chamber of the heart,

in her disappearing
as quickly as we
originally see her,
even before she appeared.