ZenOfferings: Poems

Haiku 39

ZenOfferings Jan 2019

Haiku 39

The rose bud needs not
An audience adorning
Alone — it wins hearts

Too perfect to be lonely

#haiku #zen

Haiku 4

ZenOfferings Oct 2018

Haiku 4

Chimp's lost son dangles
Mighty effort to hold life
Found when she drops him

#haiku #zen #life #death #tao #sad #loss #growth #relationship

Haiku 40

ZenOfferings Jan 2019

Haiku 40

I did it to you
I paid the price in your mistakes
I did it to me too

And you did it unto you. We are each other's reflections.

(A deviation from traditional English form)

#haiku #zen

Haiku 41

ZenOfferings Jan 2019

Haiku 41

As the traffic screams
As demands call violently
The stillness deepens

The mountaintop is somehow quieter when the birds are singing..

#haiku #zen

Haiku 42

ZenOfferings Jan 2019

Haiku 42

Intrinsic value
Rooted in moments unused
Why long for the ring

I was waiting on a call to be useful, but here I already am.

#haiku #zen

Haiku 43

ZenOfferings Jan 2019

Haiku 43

The knots and tangles —
Hair informs that Indra’s Net
Weaves nothing to life

Being Caucasian with dreadlocks will reveal a great void -- and the messiness that fills it

#haiku #zen

Haiku 44

ZenOfferings Jan 2019

Haiku 44

Each day I let go
That’s how I know I’m clinging
Farther…closer still

Fading out of the you that is you and into the you that is it

#haiku #zen

Haiku 45

ZenOfferings Jan 2019

Haiku 45

The chorus starts when
Losing pictures in your mind
When they just don’t sing

When you give it up, then it comes to you. I've cried many times knowing my greatest losses were my greatest gains.

#haiku #zen

Haiku 46

ZenOfferings Feb 2019

Haiku 46

Geese flock over lake
No reflection intended
Lake no mind to cling

How to attract your true love

#haiku #zen

Haiku 47

ZenOfferings Feb 2019

Haiku 47

I'm wasting moments
Waiting for you to come back
Here I am

Still a departure from Zen

Haiku 48

ZenOfferings Feb 2019

Haiku 48

The consumed hollows
Of the oak tree in the field
Feeds its fall to grace

Being ⇔ Non-being

#haiku #zen

Haiku 49

ZenOfferings Feb 2019

Haiku 49

Complete emptiness —
How many holes do you take
To fill your soul full?

You are the void

#haiku #zen

Haiku 5

ZenOfferings Oct 2018

Haiku 5

Humble king’s castle
Heart of the just dominion
Gone with the high tide

#haiku #zen #nature #beach #temporal #power #time #growth #decay #destruction

Haiku 50

ZenOfferings Feb 2019

Haiku 50

What a good lay will...
Life drips on smearing the time
You're getting fuzzy

Sometimes you just need to have ***

#haiku #zen

Haiku 51

ZenOfferings Feb 2019

Haiku 51

Only from nothing
Comes sound; The noiseless wonder
Is one hand clapping

An adaptation of a koan, and a return to haiku

#zen #haiku

Haiku 52

ZenOfferings Apr 2019

Haiku 52

What is ****
Is it not my fingers flying
On this here keyboard?

Recently, in response to Zen, a man asked me,
"So **** is good, then?"
I laughed
He did not

#haiku #zen

Haiku 53

ZenOfferings May 2019

Haiku 53

A crest with no trough?!
You can not break the silence
Its in your bones...

A fitting haiku for a return from a hiatus

#haiku #zen

Haiku 54

ZenOfferings May 2019

Haiku 54

There, the air does quake
But it becomes the nothing
As the fly passes

In response to: "Everything vibrates. There is no nothing."

#haiku #zen #tao

Haiku 55

ZenOfferings May 2019

Haiku 55

An old love passes
Like a leaf on a breeze
Not worth pursuing

Still your heart yearns for it

#haiku #zen

Haiku 56

ZenOfferings Jun 2019

Haiku 56

Memories are just
A tightening behind the
Eyes that looked on you

#haiku #zen

Haiku 57

ZenOfferings Jun 2019

Haiku 57

This is the one time
For you to know you're a you
That can be the it

Read it again slowly

#zen #haiku

Haiku 58

ZenOfferings Jun 2019

Haiku 58

To experience
That which made saying goodbye
So difficult -- blessed

The pain indicates a blessing. I had confused it for a curse.

#zen #haiku

Haiku 59

ZenOfferings Jun 2019

Haiku 59

The traveler roams
Seeking a home; doesn't know
Home is in her heart

#zen #haiku

Haiku 6

ZenOfferings Oct 2018

Haiku 6

Benevolent bee
Buzzes to death for his queen
Somehow…not enough

#haiku #zen #love #breakup #relationship #sacrifice #selfless #humble #loss #death

Haiku 60

ZenOfferings Jun 2019

Haiku 60

Walking in circles
My path leads around again
My thoughts, something new

No two things alike

#zen #haiku

Haiku 61

ZenOfferings Jun 2019

Haiku 61

Oh we were so high
Poor place to build a kingdom
Branches can't sway roots

Find strong foundations

#zen #haiku

Haiku 62

ZenOfferings Jun 2019

Haiku 62

Waiting for crossroads
One day you'll find -- there's no path
Crossroads all the time

The time is now

#zen #haiku

Haiku 63

ZenOfferings Jun 2019

Haiku 63

Despite your thinking
Uncalculated life is
What you've always done

Still trying to find Zen?

#zen #haiku

Haiku 64

ZenOfferings Jun 2019

Haiku 64

As sunbeams trickle
So too do the moments here
Spent in my suchness

#zen #haiku

Haiku 65

ZenOfferings Jun 2019

Haiku 65

Pieces of oneness?
Apart is what we make it
Glue is what divides

#zen #haiku

Haiku 66

ZenOfferings Jul 2019

Haiku 66

Signage won't matter
Nor the road paint that you lay
Love is not one way

#zen #haiku

Haiku 67

ZenOfferings Jul 2019

Haiku 67

Oftentimes passion
Is what gives weight to empty
Then you may feel full

Though fundamentally not one thing exists
Where is the dust to cling?

#zen #haiku

Haiku 68

ZenOfferings Aug 2019

Haiku 68

Distinguishing crest
And crashing into focus
Turbulence is mind

I was particularly nervous beginning a new chapter of my professional life. Less so once I began and remembered that troughs bring balance to all crests.

#zen #haiku

Haiku 69

ZenOfferings Aug 2019

Haiku 69

The sound of tear streams
Tears the patterns asunder --
Deafening silence

#haiku #zen

Haiku 7

ZenOfferings Oct 2018

Haiku 7

Wherever there's rocks
Watch out; eventually...
Those rocks come alive

#haiku #zen #spiritual #philosophy #power #growth #time #energy #life

Haiku 70

ZenOfferings Aug 2019

Haiku 70

Withered rose -- framed, shelved;
Her supple scent forgotten
Figure long remains

May the nature of your love be iconoclastic

#zen #haiku

Haiku 71

ZenOfferings Aug 2019

Haiku 71

One sided affair
The smile you then gave it
Said have a nice life

How do we transmute the mystery?

#zen #haiku

Haiku 72

ZenOfferings Sep 2019

Haiku 72

Reciprocation
Is not asked; The sun's love is
Unconditional

Love like that

#zen #haiku

Haiku 73

ZenOfferings Sep 2019

Haiku 73

Unclench grasping fists
Open hands are better poised
To catch mysteries

#zen #haiku

Haiku 74

ZenOfferings Oct 2019

Haiku 74

A rooted figure.
Though too soon the pattern slips,
...Life lasts a lifetime

In memoriam: Noah
My love to you Jill, and to your family.

#zen #haiku

Haiku 75

ZenOfferings Feb 2020

Haiku 75

We should take a side
If we grow too invested
Thereby end the play

There is unity in duality
There is harmony in conflict
There is one in the diverse

#zen #haiku

Haiku 76

ZenOfferings Feb 2020

Haiku 76

No woe where I dance
I'm the opulent side of
The carbon cycle

#zen #haiku

Haiku 77

ZenOfferings Feb 2020

Haiku 77

Instrumentation
Bows to whispers in my heart
When counting spring buds

#zen #haiku

Haiku 78

ZenOfferings Feb 2020

Haiku 78

Toes up to the stream
Siphoning an allowance
And there was no fee

Mind your oppressors
Who make manifest a world
Where life is not free

#zen #haiku

Haiku 79

ZenOfferings Mar 2020

Haiku 79

Death's liberation
That all things fall forgotten
Lends the will to live

#zen #haiku

Haiku 8

ZenOfferings Oct 2018

Haiku 8

There’s one thing I know
That I’ve never been told, ‘cuz
It’s nothing to say

#haiku #zen #tao #void #life #death #god #love #peace

Haiku 80

ZenOfferings Mar 2020

Haiku 80

When I do transmute
Its only the shaped I move
The shapeless I use

The formless is what provides

#zen #haiku

Haiku 81

ZenOfferings Mar 2020

Haiku 81

All the thief may steal
Is Earth that you've distinguished
"Your's" instead of "Our's"

#zen #haiku

Haiku 82

ZenOfferings Jun 2020

Haiku 82

Funny how we find --
Its like we bury treasure
And "X" in our mind

#haiku #zen

Haiku 83

ZenOfferings Jul 2020

Haiku 83

Wait for clarity...
Why mind mud? I see myself
Equally as clear

A new take on an old tale

#haiku #zen