Thin Line--An October Poem

For David Hernandez
A grandfather whose kindness I can never repay

The fires are lit to stave
Off first hoarfrost
The harvest in
With its scent of rot mingled
Amid sweetness
Overhead winged
Cry out in joyful unison
On their way home
Below crickets trill
Las Abuelas begin the story
Stitching us to the tapestry
Weaving our fate
Into the fragile web
Gossamer threads between
Being and non-being
Betwixt between
The thin line of here
And over there
Outside time
The fires are lit
For love and
Heart’s desire
Before extinquished
In final glory
And all is well

Day of the Dead installation, KPC October 31, 2016

Photo by Jacqueline Gens

October 19, 2016

Tsegyalgar East

Another Found Poem--Gould's Sugar House

Gould’s Sugar House

I wait for Kate my therapist
Now long-time friend
To join me for brunch
At Gould’s Sugar House
On Route 2's historic Mohawk Trail
Early spring day when hardly any sap
Will flow -- for you see it takes freezing nights
And warm days to make the sap 
This peculiar cusp of no-winter
There in the rustic barn above the sugar 
House for a contemplative moment
I see all the people before me
Their music the din of restaurant
Noises, sips of coffee in anticipation of  pancakes
                           waffles, corn fritters

Each in their own vision of reality
Not touching yet together seeking
That taste of sweetness

Jacqueline Gens
Revised October 5, 2017
Highland Village
Shelburne Falls, MA

More Haiku Offering by Jacqueline Gens

While looking through old notebooks and teaching materials I came across some Haiku and American sentences jotted down that I did in 2012.

On Leaving my Dentist's Office on High Street, Brattleboro, VT

Taunted by impermanence three strangers stand
By the side of the road contemplating the sadness of animals
Cat run over

American Sentence Version

Taunted by impermanence three strangers huddle around cat road kill

Dream

Furry animals shiver together while Buddha comforts us

American Sentences


My Mother's sad face returns to me in the soft snow I didn't notice

BREATHE the monk Philip said to me when two phones rang at the same moment

Haiku

The old poet sat with me on the cement stoop
Early morning coffee in Boulder
Yelling caw caw back to the crows above

Snow plows scrape  ground
Harsh words uttered grate tender
Phantom enemies

The red haired young man
Hates me like so many others
Forgive me, son





   

Spring is here and that means Garlands of Lilacs, Forsythia, and Daffodils

The Lilac Thief

This year I looked for lilacs
off the beaten track
in places no longer tended –

A different kind of boundary,
long rows where once houses stood,
lots now empty.

I love the deeper purple of old bushes,
their crushed bloomets falling into my hand
taken from gnarled bark bearing heavy plumage.

I am the local lilac thief,
that one who stops to follow
the scent of unseen blossoms.

Jacqueline Gens (many years ago)


Here is a fine essay by poet/dakini Annie Finch on Spring's arrival from the Poetry Foundation site.

Updates from Poetrymind for May 2016

• May 5 Lecture/workshop in Pittsfield MA  on the Poetics of Uncertainty 
• May 7 Next Meditation and Writing Group at the Shelburne Falls Shambhala Center
• May 15 at Khandroling Paper Cooperative we will have a workshop with Dara Juels 

The Morris Dancers are out in full force these days. Here's a classic May Day dance/song at dawn:

Then there is our own Packers Corner friends who have celebrated May Day for over forty years with poet Verandah Porche in a photo taken by Poetrymind writing group participant Terry Carter.

Forbidden Scribbles from a Vipassana Retreat

Forbidden Scribbles**

on a Vipassana Retreat

Lying in Buddha posture

Outside I hear geese

Like me flying home

*

First Buds of Spring

Bird rustles in the underbrush

Can you ask a poet not to sing?

*

Old lady nods off

Drooping head signals torpor

Lion awakes without fail

*

Are clouds sky--sky clouds?

Where are you mind?

I looked everywhere and can’t find you 

*

Cars rush, Ocean of Dharma***

Squeaky door, cat’s meow

What’s real?

**Generally one is discouraged from writing or reading on a traditional Vipassana retreat. These mosty composed in my head outdoors during retreat, then jotted down on scraps of paper
***Part of my Bodhisattva name