Total Night

I don't write it. My hand writes it. It writes itself.

I write it. Who is I?
Is this Ku Okamoto?
Or is it Andrew Wilson?
Or someone deeper
and more mysterious?

What is this magic act
we call writing?
How is it that across the abyss
our minds touch, and sparks fly?

I woke at dawn.
The sky was bright
as a knife blade.
The forlorn whistles
of freezing songbirds --

Yet. Yet.

In this majestic bareness
is there anything to manifest?
It all manifests in a single instant.
There! There!
Gone again!

What will compare
with this splendor?
Like the whiteness
of a plodding ox
or the sky-obliterating blaze
of this mass of red blossoms.



Nobody knew
and nobody had a clue.

Most times actions and words
reek of trying to be someone you're not.
So who are you?
What is this right now?
If you call it a fist you're clinging to a name.
If you call it not a fist you deny the evident reality.
Speak!

a blazing mass of red flowers
obliterates the whole universe
plunging the Buddha's mind and body
into total night --

yet! yet!