Temple Dog

A Tiger Springs at Midnight

Bags and tubes,

Little yellow jars.

Ten thousand pills

In a square white box.

My doctor raises a knife

With his tongue.

Who says I've cheated Death?

- David Clark

Healing Slowly

"You must rest! You must rest!"

I look into the care-worn face of my wife.

Lifting a mirror up toward her,

The patient tries to heal his nurse.

- David Clark

Ha!

Big spoon, little bowl,

A sudden gust of gravity, 

A jumping fish,

A mayonnaise kitchen.

- David Clark

Image by Gibbon Sengai

I awoke in a hospital bed

To find the ox licking my face,

His wet tongue wiping away

The tears of the world with each rough stroke.

- July 5, 2008

Life has been most interesting of late. At midnight on the night of June 12th, while visiting friends in Seattle, I received a surprising phone call. "Can you be in San Diego by 6AM? We have a new liver for you." 

To say I was stunned would be a gross understatement. After three and a half years on the transplant waiting list I had begun to lose hope of ever getting such a call, losing strength and stamina with each passing day. Now, at the end of the first day of the first vacation I had allowed myself in a very long time came the call! My wife got on her cell phone immediately and made arrangements with Alaska Airlines to get us on the first flight out in the morning. While it was not possible to make it to San Diego by 6, I could assure Dr. Barry, the surgeon, that I would be there in time for the operation at 9:30. We showered, repacked our bags and at O-dark- thirty our friends drove us, still stunned, to the airport. 

A favorable tailwind got us to our destination 10 minutes early.  As I climbed into the first cab in the line at the airport I notice something that gave me a bit of a start. Atop the meter box was mounted a museum-quality reproduction statue of the ancient Egyptian god Anubis, the guardian and escort of the souls of the dead through their journey in the underworld! Hmm. I asked the middle-eastern looking driver to explain the meaning of our black lacquered companion, but he could not. It was not his cab, he shrugged. It was at that point that I reflected on the fact that it was Friday the 13th. Good thing for me that I am not superstitious! 

Try Coming to Cold Mountain Sometime

"When people see the man of Cold Mountain

They all say, "There's a crackpot!"

Hardly a face to make one look twice,

His body wrapped in nothing but rags...

The things we say he doesn't understand;

The things he says we wouldn't utter!"

A word to those of you passing by-

Try coming to Cold Mountain sometime!"

Han-shan and Cold Mountain

                

It has been a crazy, hectic week in my world. Thank goodness for poetry! At the close of the day I have been dipping into the marvelous, lucid world of the Cold Mountain poems, by the T'ang Dynasty hermit/poet Han-shan (as brilliantly translated by Burton Watson). Regarded as the finest of the T'ang era Buddhist poets, his work was produced during the flowering of Chinese Zen and is still prized in contemporary Zen sects. Han-shan's own words express my feelings about his verses so well that I'll simply quote them here.

"Do you have the poems of Han-shan in your house?

They're better for you than sutra-reading!

Write them out and paste them on a screen

Where you can glance them over from time to time."

The following is one of the poems that recently been much on my mind. It is labeled #98 in Watson's collection of 100 selections, first published in 1962.

"In the late sun I descended the western hill,

Light streaming over the grass and trees,

Till I came to a dark and gloomy place

Where pines and creepers grew thick together.

Within crouched many tigers;

When they saw me, their fur stood on end. 

Not so much as a knife in my hand,

Did I not gasp with fear?"

The image above is a detail from a Chinese rug pictured on the website of  

Thomas Cole's Antique Rugs and Textiles. If you appreciate textile art at all, check them out at:

www.tcoletribalrugs.com