Where To Perish
When you’re in harmony with the unborn Buddha Mind,
tail, legs and arms operate on their own — Bankei (1622-1693)
Use rusty nails and shells for toenails.
Spiderwebs move into her stitches.
Blend bamboo and voodoo for the updo.
Baleen etched on iridescent abalone.
A red string knotting lifeforce to forest. It rests
in an oceanic schoolroom. Your teachers swim hallways
of mind, canoodle and bamboozle.
Make waves! Lunchroom duty for ladies with ladles
who tirelessly babble, embroiled in pointless, eroding
susurrations. Water jug, sequoia, telluric dulcimer.
This is how the tail and arms self-operate.
This is how you glide to your lighthouse
during stormy weather, your wheelhouse refuge,
how you paint your brow like parting clouds,
how you create moments of flame, of pain, rainy
moments that claim you. This is how you escape
across desert, slithering on solar currents, how you glissade
over alpine when you’re dying, can no longer
thread your fingers through the needles of your hair
to comb out knotty briars. Summoning your valor
when facing a forest face, foggy, groggy interspace,
you stare into its black trees and red lip
sunsets smile for you to come hither.
You bleed berries from its mouth. You drink its gin.