Zen Fable

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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