[ARTS]: Big and Little Poetry--free verse, any verse.

[Tai Shi]

I read Every Poem

It is but 4:58 a.m.
My heart take wing
Friends this for you
I sit daily for Friends,
Family, Dear friends
Of Unitarian Universalist
Seeking their own right
Spirituality, regarding
Unconditional as woman
For man and man, woman
For woman, man for woman
As the Tathagata spoke
Loving Kindness one
For many, many for one
An one for one, loving
Self actualized. One seeks
As parents taught mirror
Behavior as the Buddha
Taught Love or Jesus,
To Kind parents, give
As mother would give
Also father hurts
Same in regard always
Child's operation father
Deep in the brain
Does not walks not
Simple as not desire
Desire so straight to doctor
For his child I did
Seek in solitude weep
There winter, done
With others love each
Other as in our marriage
When now we seek, my
Best Friend, frail two
Years, bab cry not
Removed not AVM
Not relive, Karl Rogers
Sought to show child
Learns in more ways
Understanding love
Dad direction in classes
Took to literacy priority
Books stones in soup
Mom conservation
Montessori studied child
Learning in freedom.
Actualized love never
Always learned nightly
AS SHE READ BEDTIME
In habitation stotrove
Equanimity, alone,

Together is their home,
Beautify those desires
To make reason never
Shown and plaything
Medicine for psychology
For teacher, I helped
Girl publish in small
Magazine understanding
My Little Book of Poetry
Another wishful in dreams
Her notebook of silent need
On Yellow mountain, letter
Becomining bright Marge
Chuck way to Peace.
Child of Loving-kindness.

Gassho
Deep Bows`
sat/lah

[Tai Shi]

As i wrote in simple
Dignified praise from beginning
Of our verse wringing
As is this back not
Supporting today without pain
The advent of my pain
Curse me disease bones
Into my back, neck
Sacrum, Ankylosing
Spondylitis breaks
My Eyes, my every step,
Even as I sit crooked,
Invisible to much,
To most I am but figure
Straight, Amen.
Pain again, again.

Gassho
sat/ lah

[Tai Shi]

For me, I have worked to allow, as Tate did, my keyboard to follow where his pen lead him in a manner of free verse to see where my thoughts might take me and I usually compose where I am as I have done with my poetry since I was 16, and now I am 71. I enjoy all of you.
Gassho
Tai Shi
saat/lah

[Jishin]

The Treeleaf Sangha, now online we find,
A virtual community, connecting minds.
Through screens and wires, we come together,
To sit in silence, now or whenever.

With every breath, we let go of our fears,
With every click, we enter the present here.
No longer bound by distance or time,
We find true connection in this online climb.

We share our thoughts and stories, near and far,
And find in others, a reflection of who we are.
We laugh and cry, and learn to be at peace,
In this online sanctuary, we find release.

Though screens may separate, our hearts remain as one,
In the Treeleaf Sangha, true freedom is won.
Our virtual zendo, a place to heal,
Where mind and body find a sense of real.

A space for growth, for learning, for change,
Where we can find a new range.
So let us join, in this digital space,
And find true peace, in the Treeleaf Sangha's grace.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

[Tai Shi]

James Vincent Tate (December 8, 1943 – July 8, 2015) was an American poet. His work earned him the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He was a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst[1][2][3] and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Biography
Tate was born in Kansas City, Missouri, where he lived with his mother and his grandparents in his grandparents' house. His father, a pilot in World War II, had died in combat on April 11, 1944, before Tate was a year old. Tate and his mother moved out after seven years when she remarried. The eventual poet said he belonged to a gang in high school and had little interest in literature. He planned on being a gas station attendant as his uncle had been, but finding that his friends to his surprise were going to college, he applied to Kansas State College of Pittsburg (now Pittsburg State University) in 1961. Tate wrote his first poem a few months into college with no external motivation; he observed that poetry "became a private place that I was hugely drawn to, where I could let my daydreams—and my pain—come in completely disguised. I knew from the moment I started writing that I never wanted to be writing about my life."[4] In college he read Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams and was "in heaven". He received his B.A. in 1965, going on to earn his M.F.A. from the University of Iowa's famed Writer's Workshop. During this period he was finally exposed to fellow poets and he became interested in surrealism, reading Max Jacob, Robert Desnos, and André Breton; for Benjamin Péret he expressed particular affection. Of poets writing in Spanish, César Vallejo "destroyed" him but he was not so taken by the lyricism or romanticism of Pablo Neruda or Federico García Lorca.

He was married to Dara Wier. Tate died on July 8, 2015 at the age of 71.[5]

Career
From Wikipedia, "Talk"

[Tai Shi]

I really, really like "Consider Another Point of View."
Gassho
sat/lah

[Tai Shi]

Newspaper Route

My morning today,
With Orange Spiced Tea,
Wheat cereal, with milk,
Chocolate protein drink,

Warmed and today hot
My stomach, my taste
I enjoyed sweet, and spiced,
Applesauce with cinnamon.

I remembered mother's buttermilk
Pancakes with homemade maple syrup,
Brother asking for shapes of cakes
Together our seldom breakfasts.

We gathered, mom, Dougie, and me.
Then I had walked several miles
Delivering newspapers to Corcoran's,
For Mike their two bedroom house
Shared one room with brother Donald,

No better than our one room, snow
On the ground, Temple of Worldly
Hughes. I warmed myself in corduroy
Coat I bought with money
Earned grooming cattle

At Iowa State Fair, the second
Largest behind Texas State Fair.
This special morning as these holidays
Screeched weeks away from school,
Which I had finally learned to love.

Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

Jishin, good morning! I do like "I do not like poetry..." You have a way with words Jishin, try your hand at some open forms? I too have written closed couplets. There are critics who claim the free verse forms are the only remaining forms, and as I like Eliot and Wallace Stevens, some of this may be true. I like very much the play and writing
with verses
That you compose.
Gasho
Tai Shi

[Jishin]

Consider Another Point of View

Consider another point of view,
Even if it's not the one you choose,
For in its consideration,
A deeper understanding we'll muse.

As an open-minded Zen student true,
We must be open to different ways,
For in their examination,
Greater wisdom and understanding stays.

Critical thinking it does encourage,
Forces us to evaluate and see,
Bringing us closer to the truth,
As our biases and assumptions flee.

Different perspectives we must bear,
To develop empathy and care,
For all beings and their plight,
In compassion, let us share.

So advocate for another point of view,
For it promotes a more informed mind,
And in this open-mindedness,
Let wisdom and understanding bind.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

[Jishin]

Dewdrop on a leaf,
A glistening pearl of the morning,
Nature's own gemstone.

A symbol of purity,
A reminder of the fleeting,
A beauty that is brief.

It clings to the green,
A reflection of the sky,
A mirror of the world.

It sparkles in the sun,
A dance of light and shadow,
A symphony of form.

It drips to the ground,
A journey to the earth below,
A return to the source.

It joins the rivers flow,
A part of the great cycle,
A link in the chain of life.

In this dewdrop, we see
The wonder of existence,
The mystery of being.

So let us take a moment,
To appreciate this small thing,
And in doing so, find peace.

Dewdrop on a leaf,
A glistening pearl of the morning,
Nature's own gemstone.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

[Jishin]

Worry not about dying, for it is beyond our might,
A mystery of life, a natural plight.
Embrace each day as if it were your last,
And cherish every moment that goes by so fast.

Do not fret about what you cannot control,
For it is but a waste of time and a toll.
Live in the present, with all your might,
And make the most of this fleeting life's light.

Death will come, as it must to all,
But let it not cause fear to rise in your fall.
For in living fully, we honor the dead,
And in dying, we are but returning to the earth, our bed.

So worry not about dying, for it is not in our hands,
But in living, let us make the most of our sands.
Live fully, love deeply, and leave a lasting mark,
For in that, we will have truly lived, in the end, hark!

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

[Jishin]

Orange you something, Jishin.

(But, please, leave me out of your poems. Thank you.)

Gassho, J

stlah

[emoji106]

[Jundo]

Orange you something, Jishin.

(But, please, leave me out of your poems. Thank you.)

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jishin]

Oh gee. I like your poems until now. Stick to medicine.

Okay, can you make on that rhymes with orange?

Gassho, J

stlah

Jundo, the Zen master, sits in stillness,
An orange, a fruit of nature, hangs in its richness.
Different they may seem, but in truth, they're not,
For both hold secrets that can only be taught.

Jundo, with wisdom, teaches us to let go,
An orange, with its peel, shows us how to grow.
Different they may seem, but in truth, they're the same,
For both hold the key to life's endless game.

One is a teacher of the mind, the other of the body,
But both lead us to a path of inner calm and serenity.
Different they may be, but in the end, they're one,
For both Jundo and orange, teach us what has to be done.

So, let us not see them as separate,
For in their differences, they complement.
Jundo and orange, two sides of the same coin,
Guiding us to find peace and joy within.

[emoji3]

[Jundo]

Jundo the Zen master,
In robes of white,
Walked the beaches of Nantucket,
With seagulls in flight.

Oh gee. I like your poems until now. Stick to medicine.

Okay, can you make on that rhymes with orange?

Gassho, J

stlah