The wind scrapes
a dry leaf across the walk.

Our one dog stretches
and m-lessly moos.

PLENTY OF NOTHING

that the sky's not torn
by the blackbird cutting across

that the embolus paces exactly
the absence in the blood

THOROUGHLY MADE

and stained just so,
your pale blue shirt.

The end is the Way,

the beginning is the Way.
And the eternal cold and silence is the Way.
The one moment
your lids blink on yellow eyes.
OUR BIG DOG BOSLEY

Nose to nose through the window,
a squirrel, a little dog.




By the tulip tree,
thickly iced with pink and white,
flat-trimmed, dark green hedge.

THE DAO OF GOD'S WILL

We are seeing more and more clearly that our sensations, thoughts, and intentions and what can be discovered to be happening physically in our brains are two faces of the same phenemenon.  All arise continuously from a pre-existing state.  Similarly, the workings of the universe and the will of God might be seen as two aspects of the same thing, will not being anterior to being, but both arising together.  In this view, the will of God is one of Joseph Campbell's x's, knowable only by analogy.  The way and its power are inseparable.  You are what sweeps you along.

Listening to Glenn Beck yesterday. He was saying to his audience, hey listen folks, if we're serious abt drastically dialing back government, we've got to bump up charity a lot: there are real needs out there. Admirable, and certainly not the full-on Ayn Rand line. My concern abt leaving everything to private charity is the likely unevenness--your chances of relief may depend on your living close to, or coming to the attention of, someone who is both sympathetic to your plight and has the means to give you succor. Or then if we go to large institutional charities like the United Way, things begin to look quasi-governmental. And your contributions begin to feel a bit like taxation without representation--I'm sure most of you at one time or another have had your arm twisted by an employer for "100% participation." I'm having trouble purging all vestiges of liberal concern for equality and economic justice from my thinking.