Snow

Two days ago,
ten inches of snow,
then my neighbor
cranked up his snowblower
and polished his driveway, clean.

I made a couple of snow shovel
widthed paths on the hill,
my drive being much longer
than his.

Yesterday the sun shined brightly,
reducing the snow to slush,
and giving us both a little
lesson on patience.

Large Party

I was in a room decorating
cakes with a pallet knife.
The cakes were more the
size of cup cakes.
The smallest piece was
just a fragment that had broken off
from a larger cup cake.
I knew that I had to decorate
all the pieces.

Then the dream switched
to my high school
where they had just installed
some elevators by the stairs.
I believe I dreamt about
those stairs before.
The doors to the two elevators
(one for up and one for down?)
would freely open but sometimes
there would be no cars
and one could drop to oblivion
if they stepped forward.
I was worried and thought
I ought to tell someone.
But it was as if they weren't
broken and no one was concerned.

Next I was at the rehearsal
for some large party.
They wanted to see
if they had enough seats
so they had everyone come to sit down.
There were mostly round tables,
then a table for two
that one person sat at,
and then a table for one where I sat.

We then had interviews and
I started to talk with someone.
Perhaps he was a Buddhist.
Before I was through talking to him,
he invited in the person
who sat at the table for two,
then talked briefly to the two
of us before telling me
that I had to leave.

Text in Squares

I was in school,
but there wasn't an actual time
for the class I was taking.
I had one of my daughter's teachers
and we were supposed to do
something with a page of text.

She didn't want us to use computer type,
but rather she wanted us to hand write it.

I said that I had a type face
that looked like hand writing.
I think I was lying but knew that I
could probably find such a type.
She said that would be fine.

Later I decided to hand write the text,
then scan it into my computer.
My colleague, who is a lithographer,
had written it in pencil and transfered
the pencil to a stone
(not easy to do).
He was very smug
about how good it looked.
I looked forward toward writing
the text into squares,
one letter to each square
like I used to write numbers
in the third grade where
I tried to see how far I could count.

The teacher was disappointed
that I had a class at 1 pm,
and that I had to leave.
There was another part of the dream
about food and a lunchroom
without any windows.

(Lord Jesi
Forgive
my si
ns please

Acme
Swtshrt)

Helping a Friend Take his Life Dream

How wonderful to wake
from a nightmare
to find that
what was so fearful
was only an illusion.

In my dream
I made up a story to hide
how we had helped a friend
take his own life.
I wished, afterward,
that I had not been involved
in the episode.

I came to realize
that making up a story
is much more difficult
than telling the truth.
And then I started becoming
fuzzy about what was my role
in this escapade.

The individual who was
ultimately responsible for
the matter was not
punished.

Still, upon waking,
I was relieved
that it just a dream.

Two Faces

Returning from Nirvana

It was a long ride from
peace & quiet. It was bumper
to bumper going the other
direction.

Three Monkeys

Saved from Dukkha*

There will be
silence while
you wait.
Thanks for
your
patience.
(L.L. Bean)

*Dukkha

Being a Mother

Being a mother
means eating
cold food.

Cuddling

They cuddled close to each other
after being separated for just a
few hours.

Is Buddhism Lots of Work?

He asked
if Buddhism
was lots
of work.

Much less
than suffering
was the
answer.

Tired=Tried

She closed
her eyes
because she
was tired* &
tried* to go to
sleep.

(second arm fell off)

*tired=tried

Two Chairs, Part II

The old chairs waited
two days by the curb
for a new home.
Either the garbage men
took them for reincarnation
or someone recognized
their plight & gave them
a new home.

See: http://mrkimmosleywrite.blogspot.com/2008/02/attachment.html
for part one.

Buddha Mirror

I worked hard
all day to find
the buddha* in
everyone. Then
I glanced in the
mirror and saw
myself.

*buddha=awakened one or enlightened one

Shifting Stuff

As I sort
& shift thru
my stuff,
life passes
me by.

Cleaning House

He looked at
all that he
had brought
home and
wondered if he
could find
peace in it
all.

Cut off the flow of time

He wondered when it would
happen
then a moose appeared on
the road & he
forgot the past
and the future &
the road was all moose.
It
was
the
time that
was stuck
by the moose
in the pipe. He gripped
the faucet & turned it
hard, squeezing another
drop of time from the pipe.

The Sound of Silence

Done at the Mid-America Buddhist Association during a meditation retreat.

To Comprehend a Nectar

This is based on a poem by Emily Dickinson.
Understanding is sometimes what we do instead of becoming intimate.

Kim

Disattachment

I had two chairs for
many years. They could
no longer be part
of our lives. I took
them 2 3 thrift stores.
They would not take them
so I put them out in the
street hoping someone
would pick them up.

This was
the only chair
that I could use
to make art.

Reinforcement

P.S. One of the
chairs was put out
for the garbage truck
in 1969. I rescued it
and gave it a good life.
I don't
remember about chair
number two...except
I believe I took
it apart and painted
it because it was rusted.

The White Bread Kid

Mary had it all.

She was a white bread
kid with not a worry
until her stomach started
to get big when she was 12.

William Blake described such events in his inspirational illustrations and poems in the Songs of Innocence.

The Non-Compassionate Man

This piece is dedicated to Kon Ichikawa,
who died yesterday at 92.
He did a wonderful film in 1956
called The Burmese Harp.

Instead of staying around 2
bury the dead, he went home
to his wife and son.

P.S. The film presents an
ethical challenge to the
adage, "love afar is spite
at home."

Sad Bread

I made the bread very sad when
I picked just one piece to draw.
I assured the other pieces that
I could have selected
them just as well,
But my words were in vein (sic).

Bread and Butter

They asked me if I wanted
some bread. I said no but
they brought it anyway and
I said thank you. I thought
about eating it, but decided
to draw it instead.

No News is Good News

When they are off and away,
we pray for good news,
but more than that,
we pray for no news,
knowing when silence prevails,
they are all right.

The phone rings and we jump,
relieved that it is not bad news,
but rather relieved to hear someone
who doesn't want to sell anything,
who just wants to do a survey.

We want to be there,
at their beck and call
but know deep in our hearts
that they need to explore another world
now that they have conquered ours.

Who said that life was easy,
devoid of anticipation and suffering?
Who said that life was permanent,
and that all would play out
according to Hoyle?

Not me, said the frog.

Yesterday and Today's Art

I did this on Saturday night but it is today's art because I only have one art in me each day.

This is today's art. It is ok that I do this today because who I was going to be yesterday is not who I became today.

Shooting Range

The Buddhist said he could be calm
until he drove past the shooting range
that would cause him to shudder
for two or three miles.

He talked of the Dali Lama
as the only living leader for peace.
He said that the DL refused
to be a government leader
because he refused to take a position
on issues.

Then another bullet was shot
and his attention wained
for a few minutes
until we passed the winery.

God's Plan

Change is a (Painful) Adventure

Dogs, Part III

We parted with our dogs yesterday.
I drove them to the farm of a rescue
group in Kimmswick. It was not easy,
especially since the little one
cried most of the way. The other one
enjoyed the ride, but then freaked
out when she got there.

I won't get into the subsequent
phone calls from the rescue group
after I left them, but we were
consoled by the fact that we
were better human parents than
dog parents. I will say that our
dogs were not as social as the
other dogs.

On the way I saw a horrific
car accident in the making
on the opposite side of the
highway. It must have been
just a fraction of a second
that I saw it, but I keep
rerunning the tape over and
over. I searched on the news
for more information but could
not find it.

Here's Zoe:

They are looking for a good home for her.

I have a feeling that there will
be a Dogs, Part IV. Until then,
we'll be dogless except in our minds.

Voting on a Rainy Day

I went to vote today
after my friend called
because she was so worried
that her candidate wouldn't win.

I didn't especially like any
of the prospective presidents,
so it wasn't that easy,
to say the least.

A large woman,
working for the polls,
stood over me
looking like she'd crack my knuckles
if I didn't vote for the right person.

I told her that she wasn't supposed
to be looking at me voting.
She slightly turned her head away
and I proceeded to make my mark.

No Politics Today

It is warm,
and the snow is melting,
evaporating into the
soil to make mud,
and into the air to
make a dense Japanese fog.

No politics today,
though the fog is
appropriate for tomorrow,
Super Tuesday, they call it,
when we'll get one step
closer to clarifying who
will be our new leader.

As we walk through the fog,
profound shifting occurs.
What was clear becomes obscured,
and what was lost in the fog
becomes crystal clear.

The candidates madly become
something for everyone,
hoping to entice one sector after
another to vote for them.

I'm not sharing their ambitions.
It doesn't sound like my
cup of tea.

The Medicare Argument

Some argue that a national
health plan would work
for all Americans,
"just look at Medicare,"
they say.

Medicare does work
for the recipients,
unless they happen
to be hospitalized
more than sixty days.

Then it is lights off
for those not independently
wealthy.

But who pays for Medicare?
Doctors and hospitals receive
very little for Medicare
patients, causing them to
overcharge others. If the
government controlled prices
on all health plans, like
they do on Medicare, doctors
might have to become vets.

Comments?

Dad on Political Comments

Dad told me
not to talk about politics.
I think that's how he
got along so well
with his democrat friends.

I watched Hillary
and Obama discuss
the health care system
and how they could
make it cheaper and
more efficient.

The health care system
has been analyzed
by minds much greater
than Hillary and Obama,
and whose only saving
grace is that one
insurance company has
to compete with the others.

Peter (of the Peter
Principle) wrote that
we'll always defend Paul
when he robs Peter to
give to us. Will we just
be raising taxes to
subsidize insurance
costs, or does the
government really have
a magic wand to reduce costs?

Has the government ever
reduced costs by intervening
in the free market?

Dogs, Part II

Dogs, Part II, will come.

My friend said that suspense is important
when you write.

I'm a junkie who just lost his Palm Pilot.

I had to mail it to someone in Minnesota,
or maybe Michigan, to get a new digitizer.

In the process of erasing all my files,
I lost Dogs, Part II, to oblivion.

And I was forced to use paper and pencil.

Ok, you're mad. You wanted to
know what Part II was about,
so I won't delay anymore.

Here's the scoop:

Our long love affair
with dogs is coming to an end.
Not that we don't like the creatures,
but we feel
that they have become more
a burden than a joy.

So now we are looking to put our loved ones
out for adoption. One comes from a rescue
group that insists on taking back their
dogs (though they don't return phone calls)
and the other . . . is free to a good
home.

Well, that's Part II.

Dogs

Each dog is unique.

One scruffs up her food
before it hits the bowl,
and the other waits
to make sure no more
is coming before she'll
dive in.

One feels compelled to
sit by the window and
bark at anything with a shadow.

The other will sleep through
a tornado, never caring what
may be threatening her habitat.

One wants to tear the porch
apart because a rabbit has
taken refuge, and the other
complains that her feet
are cold in the snow.

Awaiting an Answer

Sometimes I await an answer,
thinking, "if only I knew,"
and then I "get what I wished for"
only to find out that it
was not what I wanted.

One of the happiest people
I ever met was a man with AIDS
who had a short time to live.

I asked him what was the hardest
time for him. "Not knowing,"
he said.

Now that I have the answer,
I am up at bat once again.

I know the score.

What I don't know is how
fast the ball will come,
and what kind of curve
it will have.

Indecision

The cloud filled sky
caused the shadows to lighten
one moment and darken the next.

My dog awaits the intruder.
A vigilant creature,
she moves her head from side to side,
anticipating the enemy.

My wife shuffles through her life,
trying to decide what is needed
and what can be thrown away.
My compliments are returned
with "I could have thrown away more."

My Buddhist friend writes
that nothing has a permanent self,
and I wonder if everything
has an impermanent self.
Meaning that the gravel
around my pond has a self,
which would explain why
my now expired dog would chew
each rock and then spit it out.

An hour later, the shadows
completely disappeared because
of a beckoning storm,
and then,
a moment later, reappeared
as if spring was here.

Changes

and decisions.

Auto pilot,
mindlessly slowly
going through life
as if we are a self-controlled puppet.

Awaken,
get a cup of coffee,
go to work,
come home,
etc.
Not a very surprising life
until something ends or breaks.

Surprises.
The stuff that life
is made of.
Unexpected pregnancy, death,
loss of job, and we are startled
into a "reality check" reevaluating
everything we do and wondering
what we have done with our lives.

Changes. Yes to life.

Moving

Thinking about moving
is always a weaving of
sorrow and excitement.

A new life, augmented
by memories of the last
one, becomes a sort of reincarnation.

Early on, I discovered
that all places were the
same in that our reflection
is the same, no matter
where the mirror is hanging out.

Today we sold one piece
of furniture and loaded it into a van.
It has been part of our life
for many years and its place
is already taken by another piece.

Are we cold and ruthless to let go
of so much before our spaceship launches?

Melt Down

What ee called in just spring
I call "meltdown."

his was a celebration for the balloon
man, who "whistled far and wee,"
while mine is lamenting the possible
end of winter.

The frog will wake up and notice
that his limbs are a little stiff
like the balloon man who is first
lame and then goat footed.

The fish will become hungry and
notice that there are not yet
insects or vegetation to feed upon.

The ice will disappear in the
pond, never to be seen again.

My heroic neighbor,
an airplane gunner in WWII,
will rise up from his easy chair
to mow the leaves.

Spring is not all that it
is made up to be,
but in a pinch,
I'll take it.

4 Journeys

The waterfall
would not stop,
even if she had to slither
underneath the ice.

He took an interesting journey,
intending to go a recycling center
and instead ended up
at the Missouri river.
So much for Google Maps!

Exercising today was
going up and down the stairs
an infinite number of times,
unplugging this and plugging in that,
trying to be obedient to the
cable company help desk person.

We generate and/or use
lots of artifacts
as we grow: books, art, furniture.
Most of it ends up either
in a junk store or a dumpster.
It can be like quicksand.

Who has a Soul?

Above image was drawn on the back of a business card. Image below was done on a Palm Pilot using the program Tealpaint.


The Buddhist tells me that our soul
is only an illusion.

And then he tells me that the frog
might have a soul, we just don't know.

"What about the pond," I ask,
"does it have a soul?"

"Very possibly," he says,
"especially if you were to
dump a gallon of gasoline
in you'd see that
the pond would be affected
in an ecological way."

"So how can our soul
be an illusion and yet
the pond and the frog
have possible souls?"

"You said you had two
questions. What was the
other one?"

I thought that maybe
this would be clearer
when I became older.

Five doves are eating the grass
coming up between the bricks
on our patio. Astutely, they
do so in the sun on this
10 degree morning.

My hand built bench distorts
her shape to stand firmly
on the sinking bricks
below her.

I'll have to ask the Buddhist
if these observations are
illusions as well.

Snow Covered Pond

The only snow is sitting on the pond.

The water runs underneath the icy pond,
not caring about the cold weather.

The frog is hidden
in her hibernation mode.
I wonder what it is like
to wake up after such a
long sleep? How would one
contend with the interest
charges on the unpaid bills?

My daily dharma tells me
that there is a difference
between my self and my experience.

I sense that ponds and
hibernating frogs have
no sense of self, yet
have rich experiences
each and every moment.

Living in the now is
easy for these other
forms, unable to
anticipate, remember,
mourn, or hope.

Woodpile

I say that the woodpile
cuts down street noise,
though that is not quite the truth.

When I was a kid, my grandfather
was in charge of the woodpile
for our cold Oregon nights.

He'd pick up logs on the beach
and (always with a hernia) load
them into his jeep
to cut them up with a 3 foot circular blade
attached to the power take-off
on the back of the jeep.

Then he'd split the wood with
a combination of an axe, a mallet,
and some hefty wedges.

I'd try to split the wood myself from time to time,
but never could do much damage to those logs.

For him, it was one way to
take care of those he loved.

I never asked him where he
learned to do the log splitting.
I wonder if that is something he did
growing up in Russia.

My log pile is a tribute to Milton,
my grandpa. The difference is
that we have a gas fireplace
with a remote control. And in
cold weather, lots of neighbors
visit us in their pickups
looking for wood.

"No, the wood is not for a sale,"
we tell them.

Taming Monkey Mind

The light brown January oak
leaves do a shadow dance
on the trunk of their tree.

A truck goes by with the word "clean"
written in large sans-serif letters,
hoping to change someone's ways
with its mantra.

I return to the shadow dance
noticing how one moment
it is vigorous,
and a second later, it is still,
almost.

Another truck goes by with a landscape
painted on its side. A large tree
in the landscape is devoid
of any shadow dancing.

One of the shadows on my tree
quivers, sensing the competition,
and then regains his impetus
to do a fast moving encore.

Curved Shadows

The delicate curved shadows
predict a shape more sublime
than those bold straight expressions

that come from tar soaked telephone poles
or the tall straight trunks

of aged trees that enjoyed
an unfettered growth.

Every day I study my yard
out my window, searching
for that unique event
differentiating today
from all the yesterdays' past.

Much of what I don't see might have been
but was hidden by the shadows
in this special world
of other distinct jewels.