walking with coffee

The deep, wide-brimmed ceramic cup wobbled. Not true. It didn't wobble, not that you could see. The coffee in it swayed. Medium roast. Half 'n' half. Swayed not even up to the alabaster brim, east or west, north or south. The birth of a wave. A false tsunami. No spillage.

He gets to the table, dry, slight swirl subsiding.  

"They say it's easier if you don't look at it."

"I've heard that."

"It's true."

"I don't doubt it."

He looks across the table, studiously avoiding a glance at the cup as he lifts it toward his lips. He recoils from the hot coffee, flinches, spills a dollop onto the table.

"See? I didn't look but look what happened."

"I see."

"So unlooking only steadies you if you're walking?"

"Something like that. Maybe. I don't know."

"Some kind of crazy metaphor?"

"Who knows, right? For what, I couldn't say."

He reached for the cup again, looked straight at it, lifted it, coffee waltzing, and leaned forward, trying to meet the cup halfway. His lips found the brim; he sipped.

"Ah. Success."

"I see that. Congratulations."

"Thanks. This time." 

Gravity Eventually

anvil or feather

finch and hawk

magnolia leaves

lavender ivory

this April wind

landing

me

somewhere

sudden death

On the rear window, right side, the jeep displayed the following decal:

back to back

world war champs

Between the two lines of text, an American flag.

All black.

Where does one begin? 

Questions.

• What sport is this?
• Global Gladiators?
• Who are the referees?
• What was the score?
• Any penalties?
• How many "players"?
• How much is a ticket to see an "event"?
• What kind of trophy does the "winner" get?
• When is the next "event"?  
• Can a "player" be disqualified?
• How or why?
• Who is the Commissioner?
• What are the standings?
• Can you be a free agent?
• If there's a tie, does the game end in sudden death?
• Who sells the decal?
• What are the TV ratings?
• Who buys the most air time?
• Are there team mascots?
• Where's the scoreboard?
• Do the "champs" get rings?

petitioning the desert fathers and mothers

The Zen Dads and Zen Moms barely walked barefoot into the desert. Their silent footsteps and stilled voices echoed against the dunes. For the curvilinear tawny dunes, picture, the landscape of Lawrence of Arabia. 'It is written.' By accident or providence, the barefoot pilgrims discovered the Holy City of Lightanddark. They commingled and communed with the Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers. The sands were hot, the nights cold. Our protagonist applied to join the community in the desert among the dunes. Only by invitation, he was told. What was on the application, he asked. A portfolio of pain, a paean of penance, a prostrate petition, he was told. This is not the French Foreign Legion, he was warned. You don't enlist, we don't recruit. The hardest question on the application (which existed neither on paper nor on digital atoms) consists of: why? Our applicant surmised this would be a cinch. Easy. Yet he was forewarned. No whining, self-pity, or quixotic gestures toward finding oneself. Skip the escape rhetoric, the confession, or the absolution. The self-actualization crap. Our fallen hero wanted to join, even if momentarily out on the periphery, along the outer borders that required a Passport of Perfidy. The chasm between then and now, between her and him. Hesychasm. Sacred stillness silence. I want to be honed, carved, cured, our triumphant warrior wailed. There is no cure, there is no cause, replied the palindromic Abba (Father). I want to be whittled, reduced, spared, declared the supplicant-applicant. There are no words, smiled the recursive Amma (Mother). Iconic. Dolorous. It is not to hide but to expose, not to lose but to find, implored our narrator. Let me dry out, sober up, be salved, o saviors, prayed our petitioner. Why, the Abba and Amma intoned speechlessly. Read my lips. Quiet. White sands. Ascetic fasting, paring down through prayer, alms as balms. 'Though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed.' The desert monks and nuns, in a chorus cried, Cities of the night, metropolises, subway roars; there's your desert for you. Dig in. Delight. Yet the applicant seeking to join the Settlement of Sandy Silence persisted. Let me be hewn, tell me how, he said. And waited. 

hole in the donut

Waiting to board an Adirondack Trailways bus bound for New York from Syracuse, I spied a sign in the distance at the Dunkin' Donuts in the regional transportation center. 

The sign read, "DO A DOZEN."

Or did it?

Now picture a doughnut, or donut, if you will, in place of each letter "O."

"D A D ZEN." 

I pointed out this oddity, coincidence, novelty, or providential message to the prospective passenger sitting in front of me on a metal bench.

"I've never been on a bus," she felt compelled to confess.

"Never? How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"How about a train?"

"No."

"Plane."

"No." Self-conscious chuckle.

"A school bus?"

"Yes."

What Dad Zen wisdom could I impart to this brave-new-worlding daughter of her dad?

A smile, a reassuring voice.

"I wonder if it's late. I'll check," Zendad offered.

What is Dad Zen? you might ask.

If there is no self, wouldn't that rule out Dad Zen, as well as Mom, Son, Daughter, Brother, or Sister Zen?

Having no self, do we become the hole in the doughnut? 

But in doing so, are we made whole?

In Step Three of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill Wilson observed that someone, especially a fledgling seeker, might be afraid of taking a leap of faith, a surrender to Somebody or Something. Such a BraveNewUniverser might be afraid of becoming "the whole in the doughnut."  

Becoming a doughnut hole isn't just a clever Dunkin' marketing ploy.

Willing to risk becoming the hole in the doughnut takes a leap of faith, as Soren Kierkegaard put it.

Who wouldn't be afraid to take a leap of faith? Where do we fall to? Who or what catches us? Are we bruised? 

And what or who are we after The Fall?

There you have it.

It?

Alan Watts says, "This is It."

So be it.

Later, having arrived in NYC, I see In front of La Mode cleaners on Broadway near 109th Street, an Asian man wearing a black baseball cap emblazoned with the word "DAD."  

Was he practicing Dad Zen? 

(Or subliminally advertising DO A DOZEN?)

I've been staying with friends on 108th Street.

There are 108 mala beads.

A baseball has 108 stitches.

It's Opening Day.

I'll have a bagel with a schmear.
 

time for justice

The clock on the wall over the doorway to the courtroom read "5:01.33." I lie. It was not a digital timepiece, so it was impossible to record accurately its divination of time. (Does a clock read? How about announce, say, state, declare, report?) A design straight out of the Seventies. Metal or faux metal hour and minute hands. For the hours, solid silverish bars: for the numeral 12 placeholder, a thicker and darker unenumerated bar. The hour hand on where the 5 would be. In that minimalist era, designers assumed we could figure out where and what the hours were. And they were right. The minute hand roughly halfway between the 12 position and the first minute afterward. During my first visit to the courtroom, it was easy to discern and conclude that the clock was moribund. It wasn't ticking. Nor tocking. Dead battery or electrical disconnect, who could say. Time stood still. A week later, the clock made the same stoic statement. Time still stood still. Time froze as justice prevailed. Or as justice's facade winked, even as the hour and minute were suspended in time (actually, out of time). Was it time for justice. Or had the time for justice or its synonyms passed long before any defendant entered the courtroom. Rest assured, nearly all the defendants did not pass under the faceless clock as described. That portal was reserved for the public: lawyers, friends, relatives, advocates, intimates, enablers, defendants alike. Most, though not all, defendants entered through a doorway in back of the bench, to the bench's right. They were shackled, cuffed, chained, guarded by uniforms with guns. Typically guarded in their statements though sometimes unguarded and unvarnished, to their detriment. A minority of defendants came through the public's clocked-unclocked-stillborn entrance, to sit in the secular pews. When called to the bench, they spoke or kept clocklike silence and let counsel confer with the judge. But was the clock halted in its tracks at 5 (add a half minute or so) ante meridiem or post meridiem. Was time merely shutting its eyes to these matters, these sunrise or sunset deliberations. Was time as blind as justice, as the trope has it. Time was recusing itself from blame or guilt, from accusation or defense, from guilt or innocence. The sun doth shine on the just and the unjust. The same goes for time. Can we speculate on why no one has repaired this clock. Does anyone know or care. What difference would it make. One can argue, your honor, that the defendants, and all the other members of the cast (defense and prosecuting attorneys, judge, armed guards, stenographer, audience) would prefer to not hear the infinitesimal click of time, the merciless hourglass sands trickling in accord with the laws of gravity and physics. Who needs such added pressure. Better for the clock on the wood-paneled wall to pause Sphinxlike; an oracular nolo contendere. May time be called as a witness, your honor. Would that time healed all wounds, and crimes. Does anybody really know what time it is, or was, or should be. Does anybody really care. Is it time for justice or for mercy or both or neither. No clock, ticking or timeless, can say, state, declare, or report the verdict. Rain falls on the just and the unjust. Justice is served on a platter of petals and tears.