“Autumn Revelations”; “Monistic Meditation”; and, “Comprehension”: a Trio of Sonnets
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
Samaras wirble down. One hits the pond.
The silence and the ripples spread, or, if not
A silence, then a quietude beyond
Our hearing, quiet as the ripples wrought
Upon that surface. Meaningless, these facts
Mean life is meaningless or cosmic in
Their meaning. Twirling, falling, dying bracts
And settling of samaras bring to spin
Satoris made of blanks. The shining roof
Of water sending circles out inside
Each other brings a shallow Buddha proof
Of nothingness. Clear shining koans glide
To trembling surface deepness waiting for
Disciples parsing soundlessness’s roar.
Monistic Meditation
When slight the sound, if any, faint and faint,
A leaf, an autumn pond, of ripples spread
Inside, inside, inside each other, paint
Of quietness or silence shies from dread
To revelation, then the trees around
That, watching, hover over this, between
The heavens and the death beneath the ground
The roots inhabit underneath this scene,
Become eternal in their empty dreams.
The trees, the pond, the ripples unified,
Become a vision that redeems.
They render then a prophecy supplied
By mysticism quiet as a stone
Announcement of the Buddha’s silent moan.
Comprehension
Samaras and the bracts are always one,
But not. The leaf and ripples and the pond
Are always one. The mist and autumn sun
Become or always have been one. No bond
Is needed here since these are unity.
A bonding would imply that there were breaks.
These items, more than one community,
Instead are oneness setting down its stakes
Forever in the widest cosmos, no
Connection in between these details, yet
No parting either. Pantheism’s glow
Entails them. It is where the whole is met.
..The meanings of the universe are all
….Contained: both life and death make up the fall.