Zen Fable

Fox Spirit pen and ink by Jerry Ferraz

for Philip Whalen Roshi
who taught me that Buddha wasn't born in a barn

suddenly the master
struggling to put on his glasses
peering up at me
from his deathbed said
"hey, little pup
whadda ya doin' way up there"?

    ( who perched high
    upon a cloud of illusion
    grinning from ear to ear
    like the Cheshire pup )

"Can you see him' he asked,
'or do you think only "this one" can see him?"

whose wise eyes dragon tortoise love
out of eternal necessity
thus come
removing the veil from "this one"
the feast of emptiness arrives

like bolt-action from both sides

who then
having said and done
thus and so
turning life and death around
employing all the power of poesy
at his command
in handing down to us
"this one thing"
cheerfully and with aplomb
rode off on his ox
alone

and the little pup
(still wandering in a dream)
seeing his own pelted image
in the giftshop window
returned to them
same ol' ragged spots
before they too were "realized"
in stone.

©Jerry Ferraz
Fox Spirit by Jerry Ferraz (pen and ink)

published- Golden Anniversary Beatitude (2009)

©Jerry Ferraz

 

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