Meditate, keep diaries,
Create sand mandalas of great beauty,
Sweep all the colors together,
Let the river carry them away
As we fall into insanity,
Rise to enlightenment,
Or the other way around.
We pick it up like a toy, a ball.
We run across sunlit grass,
Laughing,
Tossing it back and forth.
We forget it in the gathering dusk
Under the lilac bushes.
It is time to go back in,
To get some sleep.
At least, that is how it is
For some of us,
Some of the time.
Proof by construction is the path
That God Himself has set in math.
To prove that chaos can be transformed
Into a world, the world was formed.
A choir of angels came to be
Singing: “Hosanna! QED!”
But man, a thing of clay and dust,
Had little wit and too much trust.
Soon he was fooled and led astray.
And we, his children, to this day
Remain a weak and bounded race.
Induction for the finite case
Is all we do, till in the end
Each one must meet the final N.
But there is yet a baser proof.
It’s branded by a fiery hoof.
Proof by negation seeks to alter
The very truth. And should you falter,
And in your pride or desperation
Seek to invoke the dark negation,
Repent! Or you should ever rue
Your “Let the opposite be true”.
It is like a sword that wounds, but cannot wound itself…
Zenrinkushu translated by R. Blyth
Nothing is certain.
Nothing can be guaranteed.
Not even nothing.
She dressed properly,
She spoke quietly,
She loved modestly,
She died peacefully.
Harmless, humble,
God's lamb…
Damn!
Loss drives concealed love
To go supernova.
It blows its cover
With a flood of blinding light.
It bursts out,
Piercing space with rays of radiation.
It screams and screams,
Pressing hard against the walls of reality,
Pushing apart the boundaries
Of the universe.
In deep winter the sleeping trees
Dream of branching out,
Spreading wider
Than the reach of their earthly life.
Their roots drink in the stillness that pools
Beneath all layers of the ground.
Their crowns bloom with constellations.
They hum and sing with winged beings
Who are tinier than the smallest insect,
Greater than the largest bird.
They drop their luminous fruit
Into the stream
That flows far beyond
The shores of the known world.
God as a soap bubble:
Water, breath, form.
Sublime, radiant,
Evanescent, eternal,
Emerging again and again,
Beguiling the senses
With rainbow illusions,
Holding the light of existence
With perfect clarity.
