Those whispers from the ghost of death.
Late. It’s time to turn off the light
and the ghost of death comes whispering to me
again.
"Won’t you come with me tonight? I know
You want to. I can feel it."
"Yes. I want that."
Looking away, I can see that the scarred walls
And the dirty floor are grinning at me. As if to say,
"Do it. Go with the ghost. Do. It."
A book on my nightstand opens and closes
like a sneering mouth. "Do it. Yes.
go with the ghost. Now."
The portrait of my son on wall, the ghost of death
sees me looking at it. "Yes. He’s waiting
for you. Come, I’ll take you to him."
"Not tonight, ghost." it takes everything
I have to say that. everything. spent,
my heart is empty. Numb.
I do turn off the light. And once more
the ghost of death walks away in the dark,
leaving me here to live this way.
Tomorrow night it will ask again.
and I’ll be here.
james lee jobe
To practice the way of Buddha means to completely live out this present moment—which is our whole life—here and now.
Kodo Sawaki Roshi
Shaping a fine river.
Take the water into your hands,
mold and shape it into a river.
Go on, put your heart into it.
Do this again and again. When done,
let all of your rivers merge,
one after another, one with the other,
until you finally have a huge river
that is long enough and swift enough
to carry you all the way to the sea.
Only then are you ready to lower
your own boat down into the water.
james lee jobe
The Guest
Nothing is changed: against the dining-room windows
hard grains of whirling snow still beat.
I am what I was,
but a man came to me.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“To be with you in hell,” he said.
I laughed. “It’s plain you mean
to have us both destroyed.”
He lifted his thin hand
and lightly stroked the flowers:
“Tell me how men kiss you,
tell me how you kiss.”
His torpid eyes were fixed
unblinking on my ring.
Not a single muscle stirred
in his clear, sardonic face.
Oh, I see: his game is that he knows
intimately, ardently,
there’s nothing from me he wants,
I have nothing to refuse.
Anna Akhmatova
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jlj
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