Monday, September 24, 2007

60. SWEEPING THE GARDEN

From the Archives

(March 2005) Hung Tzu-ch’eng said, "If the mind is not overlaid with wind and waves, you will always be living among blue mountains and green trees. If your nature has the creative force of Nature itself, wherever you may go, you will see fishes leaping and geese flying.”

I’ve lost sight of my geese flying and am letting my frozen and stunned places dictate my behavior, but it’s high time I find my familiar green landscape again.

Yesterday I posted a poem for a friend; ioday I’m posting one for me.

SWEEPING THE GARDEN
by Olga Broumas

for Deborah Haynes

Slowly learning again to love
ourselves working. Paul Éluard

said the body
is that part of the soul
perceptible by the five senses. To love
the body to love its work
to love the hand that praises both to praise
the body and to love the soul
that dreams and wakes us back alive
against the slithful odds: fatigue
depression loneliness
the perishable still recognition—
what needs

be done. Sweep the garden, any size
said the roshi. Sweeping sweeping

alone as the garden grows
large or small. Any song
sung working the garden brings
up from sand gravel soil through
straw bamboo wood and less
tangible elements Power
song for the hands Healing
song for the senses what can
and cannot be perceived
of the soul.

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