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Once Upon a Time: Stories & Poems of the Dharma
Spring 2013   Vol. 29 #2
Spring 2013   Vol. 29 #2

Poems/Not Poems

Preparing for my 69th in the Sierra, Freemont Lake at 8,000 feet

By Jerry Bolick

 
 

 

Leaning against the rocks,
wondering at the movement of the years
and the certainties gathered here—ablutions

on a bouldered slope, chanting in trees
in the coming dark, in the unfolding entirety
of the life I’ve known as my own.

I write, but poems don’t find the page. So I listen
for the wind, for trees turning to shadow, for the stars
to signal of sky life

as clearly as I hear the waters
on the shores of this lake.
And they come,

one, then another, and another
of that silence so ancient, so subtle
that time can’t capture, nor distance determine

the closeness so thorough
as only a poem
can know.

And I’m here, so I write, in the headlamp’s light.
As a breeze from the lake lifts the edge of the page,
I’m here, so I write.

 

∞

 

From “Online Exclusives” for the Spring 2013 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 29, No. 2)
© 2013 Jerry Bolick

Author

Jerry Bolick is a minister's assistant with the Buddhist Church of San Francisco. He has practiced Shin Buddhism and writing for almost forty years. Over that time, the two—dharma study and the study and work of poetry—have revealed themselves to be one.

Author

Jerry Bolick is a minister's assistant with the Buddhist Church of San Francisco. He has practiced Shin Buddhism and writing for almost forty years. Over that time, the two—dharma study and the study and work of poetry—have revealed themselves to be one.

 
 
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