You listen
to the soft sound
of the straw broom
as it crawls across
the kitchen floor
not on its own
but by the brain's touch.
You listen
alive and at ease
with no mind
of the damp dust
for the ancient speech
of a rich dirt come
from an old earth.
You watch
in the quiet
of the day's chore
and wait for nothing
unique, yet you wait
with attention to take
a cosmic pulse.
You smell
the wet stench
of basement must
come creeping
up the stairs
as you sweep
down
Then you taste
the sweet breeze
of gardenias
as you squeeze
open the garden
door to the day's
arising.
In sanctuaries built by errant hands
to conceal obliging souls from death's door
chalices alone rise golden, not days.
You have to give up all graven image
and relinquish belief in all known gods
to risk trusting the face of what's unknown.
You have to die to greed, if by degrees,
to fear death no more without ceasing.
You have to let go your craving-to-love
to bid love come dwell in your bones.
You have to be still and watchful and bold
for the day to come for you calm, quiet, gold.
Unique in its calm and quiet and gold
the day came for you like no day before
to measure the clarity of your brain
to take the pulse of your heart's craving.
You had to sit still and for a long time
to see the gold leaf leap the yard's length and to know at the seat of the heart
a dreaded truth, appearance can deceive.
The gold appeared to go on forever
and just so forever seemed really real,
still not the gold day and not its measure
could assure for you a time unending.
Notice a thing common like your next breath
and let your next act come from noticing
and not from old memory or belief.
