The Great Profile

I saw the Old Man in the Mountain the year before the five granite cliff ledges giving form to face collapsed.

It was Autumn 2002 and the trees up at the notch were bare, although within the valley further north the foliage was peak.

Still, the drab surroundings only made the rock face more prolific in its inspiration, as if a vision will only come alive

completely unattached and otherworldly in the murky night when sleep has overcome the colors of our daydream.

The overall effect was honestly phenomenal! But next summer when I visited again the site I saw an even greater revelation.

There in crystal skies is surfacing the Old Man’s original face.

October Surprise

October begins with leaves 

and ends in emptiness 

and in-between occurs 

a colorful illusion 

lost to apple picking.

By November, everything is over

as if the none of it was ever there.

But that is getting far ahead of autumn things.

Stories need their telling like sleep needs dreaming.

There, a leaf is turning yellow, another

one is falling like a magic carpet

sailing in the cool fresh air,

and ten thousand erstwhile fallen

hide the ground from being self-aware.

Northeast Absolution

The wind is stuck this week. 

It’s blowing from the Northeast 

with a steadiness of force enough 

to turn the temperature on land to that of sea.

The Gulf of Maine in late September

off the coast of Northern Massachusetts

rests around the higher fifties

which is where our air is resting.

Likewise now there’s something to be said

about the art of meditation as the absolute

redeems this being no longer lost in thought

but resting in this being.

O let the sea wash over me

ten thousand yards away

as black crows fly but here

and now as silently as I.

An Acadia Love Musical

i.

Like a feeling but not an emotion.

Like attention without a thought.

Affectionate awareness isn't nothing 

as being isn't something.

ii.

That which appears to be the universe is universal being and

this knowledge known as being is just that.

And love is the sign of universal being to be followed like cairns

upon a fogbound trail on this rocky ground high above tree-level.

And fog so thick one has to walk past the last cairn to a point of almost-

no-return before the next one is discovered—this is called further.

Imagine this newborn matrix in affectionate awareness is

conditioned to perceive my self as something else.

iii.

Conditioning is an original error 

passed on thru generations

and love is the sign of my self—

the missing of the mark is not following it.

This is called sin.

And often misunderstood as 

an act against another.

There is no other.

There's only self, 

confusion and the way.

Hiker. Fog. Trail.

Conditioning. Sign. Self.

iv.

Meanwhile the big bang is the earthling name for like half

of the singular wholly process of godself knowing godself.

And the chorus sings love and attention,

love and attention, love and attention.

v.

Acadia; Act Five, Scene One: after

crawling up the desert rock western slope

suddenly seeing an eastern sea and sky

in blue panoramic ultra high definition.

One Late September Morning

This morning was as close to frost since early May. 

The sun which now appears within this picture window

warms the living room in a different way than summer sun,

reminding me I’ve built a shelter for the lack of one.

When the weather in September changes,

the change I feel is not external nor objective,

but this vital breath, this subtle feeling that I am, this seeing

affecting transformation in its universal earth-bound being.

There’s nothing but this sense of one,

affectionate awareness, easier done than said,

but being is conditioned otherwise to see myself instead as some display

divided into colors, thoughts, emotions, play.

In fact the world is not in battle, bloodshed, conflict, war.

The wind is not unfriendly, frigid, spiritless, far.

I am merely being in and breathing out—

of this I have no second thoughts about.

The Black Whole

Compassion is the default position of seeing.

Being is the only known.

Only being is known by the unknown.

If being is the only known,

and only being is known by the unknown,

then there's truly nothing

but being.

A mountain rises from the sleeping giant.

The sun is speaking from rare air.

The sun is my heart.

And I am that black hole from which the sun shines.

As the earth knows itself to be the sun,

the sun is an embodiment of that great black hole.

In this world, the language of the black hole is

the words of revelation.

Between divided emotions lovingly awaits deep sleep.

Or enlightenment in some translations.

Picture the sun as the source of the body

in tangerine clouds of absolute sky.

There's the unknown.

I am. And evolutionary intent of mind.

One not busy translating is a busy body—

urge urge urge of the procreant east.

For the discerning, 

the intelligent, the intensely questioning.

Furthur.

Ode to Affectionate Awareness

Ordinary is to time 

as nothing is to space—

conceptual pain-killers.

Being is beyond space-time

and so dangerous to personal attachments.

Resting in being begins

in the universal and eternal

and ends in the infinite and timeless.

O nothing and ordinary
is to universal and eternal
is to infinite and timeless

as personal is to being is to absolute.

Simply put,

we are conditioned to think personally

despite feeling universally—

like looking at my sometimes great surroundings

and experiencing beyond a notion

all is one

being.

Being is what love feels in-between the lines.

Affectionate awareness is such a wise and lovely name

for this essence of experience.

This affectionate awareness is the new frontier.

This not a thought, this feeling, this affectionate awareness.

This intuition is a two-dollar word for this affectionate awareness.

Revelation is the existing space

between ignorance and projection.

Intuition
is to the personal
as affectionate awareness is to being
as revelation is to pure awareness.

Deconstruct the personal.
Feel the universal being.
Absolution...

monster (in compassionate reply)

it’s the monster they fear 

that makes the monster they hear 

their champion. 

thus you shall never overcome 

a monster just by calling it 

a monster.

one can only see through

its monstrous clothes

child.

Après Moi, Je Suis: Is Is Not An Ism

Existence is personal

Conceptual.

Being is universal

Affectionate.

Existentialism is

A personal conceptual philosophy.

Being (not an -ism) is

Universal affectionate wisdom.

Philosophies are world views

Again making

Re-fictionalize

Reification.

Being is universal wisdom

Negative making

De-fictionalize

Deification.

Personal philosophies are conceptual dead ends.

One only comes to the parent through the child

The absolute through being.

Footnote—

Most religions are belief systems

Philosophies concerning the metaphysical

Dead-ending in a conceptual god—

Thank god for mystics.

The Country of Perfection

My gurus have always been stop signs and red lights 

Just a dream wrapped in a dreamer inside a dreaming.

This country of evolution is perfection as it is

All crickets and the sound of no boats on a September river.

Knowing what I’m not reveals I am the only knowledge

This red dirt muddy water universe beginning and ending.

On the silver sands of self-awareness.

I saw a sign

She is a dream

This universe

Perfection as it is.

I heard a world

The silence spoke

We are the word

That self-awareness is.

I saw a sign

That lightning struck

This thunder cried

A sign is always I.

I am
The sign.

Son Mountain 17: A Cold Mountain Transcreation

This place of my retreat,

so secret, it’s difficult to express—

without a wind, the wild vines stir,

without a mist, the bamboo is in the dark,

who do the mountain streams cry for,

why are clouds assembling together?

I sit in my hut at noon

suddenly realizing the sun is risen.

(from the translations of RP175, RH-176, BW-46)

Son Mountain 16: A Cold Mountain Transcreation

Layer on layer of mountains and rivers,

cerulean film enclosed in rose-colored clouds—

a brush of mist soaks my cotton bandana,

morning dew dampens this coat of straw,

on my feet are sojourning sandals,

in my hand is a bamboo cane.

Again gazing beyond the dust of the world

not bothered by the dreams of that land.

(from the translations of RP106, RH-106, BW-44)

Son Mountain 15: A Cold Mountain Transcreation

Divining a far-flung place to dwell,

Peace of Heaven—there’s nothing more to say.

Gibbons cry from the cold mists of the valley,

glowing peaks merge into a grass gate,

leaves thatch the roof of a home in the pines,

a pond is channeled from a spring.

Content at last to drop the world,

picking ferns as the years fall away.

(from the translations of RP79, RH-78, BW-43)

Son Mountain 14: A Cold Mountain Transcreation

My home is below lush green cliffs

with weeds in the yard uncropped—

vines hang in spiraling loops,

ancient rock rises high and steep,

monkeys gather the highland fruit,

egrets fill their bills with fish from the pond.

One or two scrolls of the immortals

go murmuring under the trees.

(from the translations of RP22, RH-16, BW-72)

On Cold Mountain, Translations, and 19

There appears to be more than one cold mountain—the real cold mountain is an absolute cold mountain—the rest are but limited buddhist frauds.

Intent at this point is transcreate all or most of what i see as absolute cold mountain—maybe less than 10% of the collection—but who knows?

By reading three translations of a single poem, one sees the poem that hasn't been translated. I call this triangulating the translations.

Just got a book called 19 ways of looking at wang wei with 19 translations of a single poem. In cribbage it's impossible to get a hand of 19.

Father and uncle playing cribbage on a red picnic table at half moon lake—when one has zero for a hand, cards thrown in disgust crying "19!"

Cribbage hand can score up to 29—also no 25, 26, 27 but 28 & 29 are quite rare—20 thru 24 will be seen making the absence of 19 noteworthy.

So a 19-sided polygon is known as an enneadecagon or enneakaidecagon or anonadecagon. So i'm off anonadecagonning.

Son Mountain 13: A Cold Mountain Transcreation

I’ve yearned to go to that eastern cliff

for numerous years until just now—

yesterday I climbed by means of vines

but halfway there was checked by mist and wind,

and the path was too narrow wearing clothes,

and the moss was too slick wearing shoes.

I stopped beneath a red perennial cinnamon tree

to sleep with a cloud for a pillow.

(from the translations of RP-9, RH-295, BW-75)

Son Mountain 12: A Cold Mountain Transcreation

In the mountains it’s cold

always cold and not just this year—

peaks upon peaks choked in snow,

deep dark woods hawking up mists,

things only begin to grow after the start of summer

and leaves fall before autumn begins.

Anyone who wanders here gets lost

looking and looking not seeing the sky.

(from the translations of RP-6, RH-67, BW-47, GS-3)

Son Mountain 11: A Cold Mountain Transcreation

I came to sit on Cold Mountain

and stayed for thirty years—

yesterday I looked back on friends and relatives

but more than half had dropped to Yellow Springs,

slowly vanishing as fire burns a candle,

passing as a river always flowing.

This morning as I face my solitary shadow

quickly tears are running in two streams.

(from the translations of RP-53, RH-49, BW-85, GS-10)

Son Mountain 10: A Cold Mountain Transcreation

Since I disappeared to Cold Mountain

I’ve lived off its fruits and berries—

what worry is there in a life

abiding in the elements of cause,

days and months flowing like a stream,

time sparking off of rocks.

The world can change with heaven and earth

but I’m content to sit within these cliffs.

(from the translations of RP-169, RH-170, GS-17)

Son Mountain 9: A Cold Mountain Transcreation

When someone sees Cold Mountain

all declare he’s wild and crazy—

his face isn’t much to look at,

his body is wrapped in rags and fur,

they don’t understand his words

and he doesn’t speak their words.

His reply to all these passersby:

come and gaze on Cold Mountain.

(from the translations of RP-218, RH-220, GS-24, BW-57)