Extemporaneous: Delightful

Washing the milk pitcher
And smiling a lot,
Swirling the water
As it bubbles up,

Playing with it
And having fun,
Breezing through
This regular chore as never before,

Never before
And never again,
Making milk from the powder
And stirring it with aplomb

But then after I’d completed
Preparing my supper,
Felt too tired and hungry
To do my work out first, as I normally do

And then thinking,
How does this dovetail
With my lightened mood?
‘But, does it have to I asked?

What makes me think
It has to make sense?
What makes me think
That anything does?

Why does everything
Have to connect?
Does life have to make sense?
Does everything have to add up?

And what if it doesn’t?
Should I be upset?—Gracious, no!
For if so, that would only create more suffering.’
But after all that, I exercised anyway!
And what of the subsequent supper, eaten with hunger?—Completely delicious!

Extant: Happiness

As I began to chop
A sweet potato,
I suddenly had an experience
Most indescribable,

That I was just chopping
This sweet potato
And that nothing else
Was going on,

That there was no Buddha,
No enlightenment
And no thought of such,
Nor any knowledge of such,

Nay, there was only
Chopping a sweet potato,
Just as ordinary
As it is,

With nothing on top,
Just a la carte,
Just as it is,
As it had always been,
Before I’d ever heard of this Dharma stuff

And yet,
It was quite different,
In a way
But in no way
That I could discern

‘But whatever it was,’
I thought to myself,
As I moved on to my next task,
‘If only it could always be this way,
Whatever that way is,
That would be it, just as it is,
Absolutely completely, just as it is.’
But as soon as I saw this, I lost it again.

Exquisitely: Flip-Flop

Now and then,
I find it funny,
How I flip
Back and forth
Between in depth musings
And making tea

And that I do it
So easily,
Like day and night
It sometimes seems,

Like two different people
Sharing the same dreams
And it may be so,
One day I may find out

That there’s more than one,
A multitude of interlinked minds perhaps,
Doing everything
That needs to be done
To keep reality going,

Sometimes having fun
And at other times
As miserable as they come,
For as long at it takes,

But for now
It’s back to making tea,
Cooking supper
Exercising, showering
And doing laundry,

Until another fit
Of thinking bursts forth,
Like the birds at dawn,
Getting on,
With their mysterious tasks.