September rain fresh linen
a blanket lain last hours
of summer spilling out
off the roof gutters
autumn takes a breath
before winter ice and cold
take the hills rip colors
from the trees red g/old
apples barley corn
birds soar into the wind
remind me we all die
regardless how much we
lean into or oppose it — I am
alone not without fire
or love long before the snow.
Rayn Roberts
Enough meditation, three a.m. earbuds Dream # 9
reading Merton’s Seven Story Mountain in stillness,
the temple bell shakes the universe, calling monks
to save all beings in hell, a cock crows in darkness.
A half moon spins the stars in a black pool forming
on land in sea the spirit dance unfolding nonetheless.
Do not count the cost, no one, nothing is ever lost.
In fitful sleep I wake to the apple autumn morning
dressing herself in crimson, grey, brown and gold.
There’s a bus to nowhere, somewhere I think home.
I feel the half moon human mind moving to fullness
asking clearly, “Will you stay with the solemn monks
Or return to mad electric nights of paradise in Seoul?”
Sleep walking dreamer that I am, I hesitate, can’t wait
To go back to a circle of friends, lovers I know, my bed
a dream-pond of incarnadine leaves sinking to rest,
the bell is tolling, calling, shaking me awake, I think
but it’s just the glaring city moon tapping on a window.
Rayn Roberts 2019
Rayn Roberts 2019
Korean Buddhism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SXf_V18wQUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SXf_V18wQU
Buesok Temple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWpX6Rf_JuY&spfreload=1
“Dream #9” is the song by John Lennon
Photos of Leaves and Trees by Rob Kashey.
There is a moment before the sound the Great Om,
Before Siva turned on one foot
Before Krishna was blue and Tara green,
Before the making of Lucifer, the heavenly war
The gravity of heaven and the drifting fire of hell
Before the holy breath blew into Man
Before Adam’s dream of Eve
Before Cain lost his mind and the daughters of Cain
And the flood, before an angel spoke to Hagar
And Moses saw a home of honey, fire and blood
Before David hurled a stone
Before Isaiah spoke a word
Before Buddha under the Bodhi-tree
The slaughter of the innocent
The cry of the desert in a voice crying in the desert
Before the sorrow of Mary
Before a nail cut the hand of the Anointed
Before the wonder of Magdalene at the tomb
Before tongues of fire
Before the first stone struck Stephen
Before stigmata in Assisi
Before Allah save infant girls
In a message of mercy from Mohammed
Before Gandhi felt the heat of a gun
And the death of Martin gave an undying dream
There is a moment
Without motion
Before the memory of time
Offered like sunlight filtered through trees falls at your feet
It is like sound
Or light surrounding the body
A lilting melody of light
Before evil or good were ideas, that when you hear
Clears the past of pain
Reconciles history to love
And the One you felt did not exist
Is with you saying
“I have always loved you and always will.”
It is the still point at the center,
That moment you truly are, that moment is now
You, mountain,
Here since mountains began
slopes where nothing is built
Peaks that no one has named,
Eternal snows littered with stars,
Valleys in flower—
Do I move inside you now?
Am I within the rock
Like a metal that hasn’t been mined?
Your hardness
Encloses me everywhere
Or is it fear I am caught in?
The tightening fear
of swollen cities
in which I suffocate.
–Rainer Maria Rilke
I have seen them before like this
with the sky so close
it seems to touch
the glaze of ice and snow,
I have seen them
lifting limbs
as if to take and hold
a star on every branch,
but not in so odd a light:
lulled by wind
into a cold dream of sleep
as though the moon
conspired with the peaks
to shine nowhere else tonight
but here, to show
they are the stars
as they are the earth,
this one place
is all the universe
made brighter by the white birch.
