Releasing Flowers

Lifting the bowl of tea

I notice gravity

Gathered in the thick base.

Reading Ryõkan’s poems

Of landscape and solitude,

How light an empty mind.

  

Releasing flowers

To float downstream,

So things pass

One thing after another!

The key was acceptance,

Sliding into the lock

So the heart turned

As fear recedes

Into that which is past,

Oh, for more and more of now.

Taking this path

Is to accept change as a constant,

Only now the path and journey dance

As summer reveals

The hidden seed

Of autumn.

A long drag up the hill

Then

The long coast down valley’s flank.

Emerging from the tunnel of trees

With ferns splashed by dappled light

A stone bridge crosses a secret river,

Another place to call home.