HAIKU RIDDLE

By Sylvia Boorstein

In what way

Is dharma practice

Like having

An adolescent child?

The mind comes home

When it gets ready to.

You stay up and

Wait for it.

CALLED IT LONELINESS

By Rebecca Radner

As long as I called it loneliness,

it stayed small and domestic, cured by

hot baths, phone calls, and books

in bed. When I called it love,

it grew sharper and twisted. It lived

in my body, and scratched up small

pieces for its nest. When I called

it life, it damn near killed me,

striking right to the center. I think

I’ll take back its name

and give us both a chance.

ALONE

By Judith Anne Azrael

The wind is cracking branches

in its teeth

The wind is running after me

I am not afraid

We are all going

to the same place

Whoever gets there first

will have to wait

WHOSE VOICE IS THIS?

By Della Cyrus

Whose voice is this

saying easy, easy now?

Some alien with a foreign accent.

No one I knew as a child.

I was nursed on expectation

set on permanent watch

for the next step

taught to run for buses

urged to ponder more

exquisite meaning. It was

assumed one smoldered

in the slow line at the bank.

So this is what it comes to?

Breathing in

and

breathing

out?

From the Winter 1985 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 2, No. 2)