KOAN

- photo by S. Auberle

This was written last year when our mountains
were blessed with an abundance of moisture...


Snow on the south side
is melting tonight
in brown patches scattered
among the white.
A thread of smoke rises
from the neighbor's house,
joining a cloud
drifting over the mountain
where snow, they say,
lies ten feet deep and I imagine

Ryokan, the Zen monk,
two hundred years ago
in his solitary hut,
his fire made only of leaves
his brush shivering across the paper:
Evening in the deep mountains
all covered in white snow,
I feel everything vanish,
yes, my soul and body, too...

The snow is melting tonight
in brown patches scattered
among the white.
Smoke vanishes into a cloud.
Why should we lament their passing?

-mimi