Issue/Publication:

Poem

June 13, 1999

for GS

“That’s ‘space’ not ‘emptiness’”

Gary replied finally

and I stopped complaining

about the impenetrable Buddhist text.

“All dharmas are marked with emptiness;

they do not appear nor disappear…”

“If I shoot a sparrow,” I’d observed,

“the world does not unravel. Life

can end, a hole in the world

where it was and went,”

insisting, like a boy.

Gary cocks his head, squint-eyed, smiles.

“Well, that’s how your mind thinks of it”

he said. “It doesn’t tell you much

about the world.”

All thoughts repatriated.

Shocked silly

when they left.