Six Poems
5 October 2014
There is here no before after.
Now won’t become something new.
Forever the leaves refrain from falling.
Where is the sun rising.
November
These last leaves
of maple and box elder,
the black locust finally:
coins and feathers
on the wet lawn.
I rake and sweep
the stepping stones
beside a stream.
In another country
a man clicks his keys and reads
aloud to himself:
These last leaves.
17 Syllables
Fallen leaf: right now
it goes beyond birth and death,
your Buddha Nature.
Warm Blood
You don’t know it, but you’re
living on a mote of dust,
and your life is the span
of a dust mite’s life.
Actually, you do know this,
but you think of yourself
as a mammoth, a saber tooth
tiger killer – or are you
another kind of mammal?
Snow Blind
Look to the right, look to the left,
above you and below you:
a pure white world.
When you have the view make use of it.
If you can’t believe your eyes, use mine.
After Reading Shoitsu *
The inner light, the outer light
where are they when
you open your eyes?
Asleep, your dreams have
difficult stories to tell;
why can’t you accept
the marvelous world
was never born?
What appears like a mirage
is like a mirage,
what appears like a god
is like a god,
and devils wear horns
because you believe in them.
One moment awake is
one more moment of illusion
if you cling to words.
(* Zen master Shoitsu, 1202 – 1280)
Peter Fortunato received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, where he held the Randall Jarrell Fellowship in Poetry. His most recent book is Late Morning: New and Selected Poems. He is a Certified Hypnotherapist in private practice in Ithaca, New York. Learn more at www.peterfortunato.wordpress.com