Poem Nine: Field Notes: “No-Mind” (無心, Mushin)

Poem Nine: Field Notes

After Du Fu’s “Spring View” 

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The view this spring:

rain, dogwood, 

wind fragrant 

with the death

of flowers, death of the flower

goddess as she lets go 

of branches- this is 

the time of letting go- 

Everything broken

gets mended. 

If your mind understands 

no mind.

Erasures of what had

fallen before frozen

in white, what was barren

now lives.

How do we fall willingly 

in love with catastrophe?

The winter’s silk dragons, 

despair, now violently in bloom.

Capture the form 

of green rolling in hills.

Brush of light across 

the disappearing mountain

at dusk.  Beauty stops

you in its tracks.

The evening star 

breaks open, 

you break open

like a sieve.

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