” Have you tried being gentle? ” she
asked when she was
only seven,
and , of course, that
was exactly what I hadn’t
done. Over the
years, this oldest
granddaughter has
tried to soften my approach, yet
the going’s been
slow and the task
a daunting one.
JDG
We can’t compel compassion
any more than
we can compel
a plant to grow.
All we can do is prepare the
soil and tend
the seed and wait.
For those of us
conditioned to make things happen,
the waiting is
hard. Doing is
much easier.
JDG
My granddaughter, Kali, swears I
told her a tale
in which Pedro,
the Mexican
Frog, went searching for his soul all
because he’d heard
that if he found
his soul, he could
have all the lima beans he’d want.
If true, I must
have been either
drunk or desperate.
JDG
If it takes three hundred thousand
times of paying
attention to
what arises
before real freedom comes, I guess
at sixty-nine
I’d better get
started, for as
the saying goes, there’s no time like
the present and
the present is
just what I’ve got.
JDG
The pink, cloud-enfolded sky leads
us west toward home
as flickering
fireflies bid
farewell to the departing sun.
Evening slowly
wraps us in her
loose embrace and
softly sings our cares away while
gentling us
into the darkness
of that good night.
JDG
Our once gentle calico cat
must have gone and
attended an
assertiveness
class. She’ll no longer quietly
sit and wait for
empty laps, or
behind -the-ear
scratches. Now she just provokes with
pesky meows,
pestering pokes,
and huffy hisses.
JDG
Holding steady is not the same
as holding tight.
To stay a course
for any stretch
of time takes a certain relaxed
surety, a
willingness to
trust, adjust, and
realign when unexpected
winds howl through and
toss about our
uneasy craft.
JDG
Summer with all its doldrums
has settled in
and Sirius,
the dog star, brings,
or so the Romans say, these long
dog days with all
their breathlessness.
Even Toby
has lost his usual zip and
lies languidly,
lost in dog dreams
of cooler times.
JDG
At times like these when it’s been one
hundred degrees
for several days,
we seek refuge
in the coolness technology
brings, but it might
be better still
to seek refuge
in the Dharma as tempers rise
from the long stretch
of all this forced
togetherness.
JDG
I share this spot of earth with tall
pines, persimmon,
juniper, and
wild cherry
as they bear silent witness to
me and all I
have called weeds, but
lately I’ve come
to wonder which is more invasive,
dandelion,
golden rod, Queen
Anne’s Lace or me.
JDG
