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Villanelle For “The Black Dog” (version 2)
You’ll go through each motion, one by one, As dark night gives way to blacker day. You begin with “I’ll live,” as you’ve always done. Pull the cord, raise the blinds, turn away from the sun. Step into the shower. Coat the pain in wet spray. You must go through each motion, one…
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Sit, Black Dog, Sit
My, I have been silent a long time, haven’t I? The image of depression as a black dog is usually that of a Baskerville-like hound, running at the heels, biting and snapping. And yet that seems terribly active for the depressed state, one where the sufferer is more likely to simply wait to be devoured…
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Villanelle For The Black Dog (First Draft)
You will go through each motion, one by one, As gentle night gives up to brutal day. And repeat, “I’ll live.” As you’ve always done. Pull the cord of the blinds, turn your back to the sun, Step into the shower, dissolve in the spray. You will go through each motion, one by…
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Kuan Yin: Beyond Human
He’s lying in the sun, breath heavy and fast, sides shrunken, bones of the chest and neck showing through the skin, backs of the ears and the toes almost hairless now. Just an old cat suffering from age and pain and a host of ailments. “Just put him down,” people tell me especially after they…
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Re-Versing Time
We did a lot of “Om”-ing back in the ’70s. Meditation was practically a competitive sport. We’d sit Lotus position, eyes only half closed so we could sneak looks at those around us. “How does she get her foot that high on her damn thigh?” “Oh, c’mon, look at the math geek–half lotus, how sad.”…
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Zen Koan
Zen Koan. via Zen Koan.
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The Parable Series: Where Are My Damn Keys?
And so the parable goes: There was a very wealthy man who kept all his money, jewels and gold locked inside a box inside his mansion. One late night, he wanted to go count his loot but couldn’t remember where he left the keys. “I know I had them in my house last I looked…
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Back Away From The Keyboard
As other introverts will understand immediately, after I’ve charged into the world with some public face on, blogging faithfully for a week, for example, I’m left both exhausted and terrified and I slink back into my den, wrap my tail around my face and try to hibernate off the contact. I use to try to…
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The Meditation of the Stinky Feet
Sitting, my free ten minutes scrolling before me, I find the breath, acknowledge the sensation and happily settle into my meditation. When I meditate, I try not to shut out the world, try instead to let all sensation in, listening to not just my breath but the gentleman, using the term loosely, in the next…
Jo Chern 