the world of dew
is a world of dew
and yet...and yet... --Kobayashi Issa

==========================
 

Nearing Princeton Station

What a wonderful world
this New Jersey is! 
Blue train engines! 


Withering cornfields
Just turning Autumn leaves
WHOOSH! 
The opposing train


Old graves by a lake
Old woman passing in aisle
Fleeting sign outside explains -

FAIR.

=========================


Loose Train Hokku-no-renga

For the blind woman
on the train every
journey is inner

She touches my shoulder, 
moves just one seat ahead
feels the winter collar

metal ring pinned
to its shoulder
smiles when she touches it

dark rings of her eyes
light up momentarily

What universes are in the heads all around me

==================


While reading zen master Ummon, 
famous for his one word responses 
to pupils questions about the nature 
of mind, I happen to look up, see a
young, clean-cut preppie reading
Wall Street Journal, large bold print: 

YES-BUT-TERS DON'T JUST KILL IDEAS.

Congruence of Ummon and General Motors
ad strikes me.  In mind's eye I see, so real: 

Ummon enters train car, walks up to preppie, 
taps shoulder, thunders in ear, 

YES BUT!!!

I chuckle smugly, stinking of enlightenment,  
self pleased, translating, "ah! kill ideas to get
to the 'thing itself ' or the 'no thing.'"

Suddenly Ummon turns, smacks me hard
with his KATZ stick, BAM! And he is correct, 
of course, to slam me. Arrogance along the
way, no matter how apparently fitting my
zenny smartness, deserves a hard

KATZ! 

I humbly return to my book, chastened, 

just write what is seen from the 
train window nearing Philadelphia: 


Hokku-no-ranga Close To Philly: 

State Prison

off the square
in the darkest cells

those forms bursting forth

In Prison Window

a jelly jar, water pours

man hands arranging
a little green vine

==

View upon entering Philly

receding steeples
the hairline of God


City garden by tracks
A scarecrow even there

Plastic milk jug for a head


Passing glimpse over bridge -
railing beside a stream
a thin student reading Nietzsche -

He who can grasp me, 
let him grasp me.
However, I am not your crutch.

- from Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche