Blue Jays of Tassajara*

(1)

I am no friend of blue jays,
those noisy, brash, belligerent birds,
but in the early morning quiet
their wild squawking
burst through the meditation hall
as if Buddha herself had
struck a gong
to end the sitting!

Who knows the Sutra for
all their clamoring?
Or is it ceremony
for one benighted butterfly
held tightly in a beak?

(2)

Hours pass.
I sit on a cedar plank
waiting for Estin, and for Thomas,
that dark-eyed young philosopher,
to drive by
before the journey up
the perilous mountain road.
I watch a flock of jays
hunting in the grass,
their blue heads swiveling
on their narrow necks,
a family of half-drunken
marionettes.

(3)

Who holds the strings
that guide our way
from mountains to
the river’s edge?

(4)

My days flow now
As the Tassajara creek flows,
gradual and unwinding
in the thick summer heat.

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*Tassajara Zen Monastery, Carmel Valley, Calif.