Three of my self-portrait poems are featured at https://thedewdrop.org/2020/11/08/robert-okaji-three-poems/
Three Self-Portrait Poems Up at The Dew Drop
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Tag Archives: zen
RO
Ro
When this note fades
will it join you in that place
above the sky
or below the waves
of the earth’s plump
body? Or will it
circle back, returning to
my lips and this
hollow day
to aspire again?
Note: Ro designates the fingering required to produce a particular note on the shakuhachi, the traditional Japanese bamboo flute. In this case, closing all holes.
Morning Suizen
Morning Suizen
Boundless, it sips direction in the way of all music,
tonguing each note for its salt.
We call this ecstasy. Or peace.
Follow, and they still escape, always beyond
our outstretched fingers.
Exhale slowly. What do you know?
That long tunnel, ribbed in silence.
The scent of burning cedar.
Days framed in darkness and birdsong.
* * *
Note: Suizen is the practice of playing the shakuhachi, the traditional Japanese bamboo flute, as a means of attaining self-realization.
“Morning Suizen” first appeared on Nine Muses Poetry. Many thanks to editor Annest Gwilym for taking this piece.
Japanese Gardens
Japanese Gardens
how natural the
lines falling so
purely as if
with a single
stroke we walk
through the opening
and see space
the white center
composed of sand
and gravel later
a gate opens
to another garden
its lantern and
stone so carelessly
arranged so deliberate
“Japanese Gardens” first appeared here in January 2015.
How to Do Nothing
How to Do Nothing
First you must wash the window to observe more clearly
the dandelion seed heads bobbing in the wind. Next,
announce on Facebook and Twitter that you will be offline
for the next two days, if not forever. Heat water for tea.
Remember the bill you forgot to pay, and then cleanse
your mind of all regret. Consider industrial solvents
and the smoothness of sand-scoured stone, the miracle
of erasure. Eliminate all thought, but remember
the water. Hitch a ride on a Miles Davis solo and float
away on a raft of bluesy notes and lions’ teeth,
and wonder how to sabotage your neighbor’s leaf blower,
but nicely, of course. She’s a widow with a gun.
Now it is time to empty yourself. Close your eyes.
Become a single drop of dew on a constellation of petals.
Evaporate, share the bliss. Stuff that dog’s bark
into a lock box alongside the tapping at the door,
the phone’s vibration, the neighbor’s rumbling bass,
and the nagging, forgotten something that won’t
solidify until three in the morning, keeping you awake.
But don’t ignore the whistling. You must steep the tea.
* * *
“How to Do Nothing” was published in Volume 4 of Steel Toe Review.
Exhaling, I Get Dizzy
Exhaling, I Get Dizzy
From one note flattened
to the next floating whole,
textured with rustling
stalks and the sweet odor
of dried grasses, you
detach, drift off.
What colors this tone, you
ask. What sings my day?
3 Poems in The Winnow Magazine
My poems “Self-Portrait as Ash,” “The Pleasure of the Right Tools,” and “The Shakuhachi Knows” are featured in the summer issue of The Winnow Magazine. I am grateful to Rachael Crosbie, Tristan Cody and friends for taking these poems.
PLEASURE IN ABSENCE OF ENDING (ENSŌ)
Pleasure in Absence of Ending (Ensō)
Thoughtful, proposing not end, but process.
In this noon’s grayness I disclose my need.
Which is a lotus floating in your pond, a clutch of zeros
blooming in moonlight. Last night’s missing sleep.
An ending, by definition, concludes.
But what occurs in a circle’s body, or infinity’s border?
Imprecision acknowledged, I sip wine and gauge distance.
Take comfort in the disorderly.
Starting at the top, the brush moves down and right,
clockwise, then rising in opposition, halts.
Drifting, incomplete, I step back.
Some leave a gap; others do not.
* * *
This first appeared in Posit: A Journal of Literature and Art in September 2017.
Ikebana
Ikebana (You without You)
Between frames, between presence and negation, authority.
If your body lies in the earth, why are you here?
Limits admired and sought: the way of the flower.
I pluck leaves from the lower half to achieve balance.
Shape and line detach, yet comprise the whole.
My father, awake in his chair, mourns quietly.
A naked twig forms one point of the scalene triangle.
Starkness implies silence, resonates depth.
Heaven, earth, man, sun and moon invoke your absence.
As you trickle through the interval’s night.
* * *
Ikebana is the art of Japanese flower arrangement.
This first appeared on the blog in March 2016, and is included in my mini-digital chapbook, Interval’s Night, published by Platypus Press in December 2016, and available via free download.
Nocturne (Blue Grosbeak)
Nocturne (Blue Grosbeak)
Why tremble
when nothing
arrives to be seen?
The architecture
of the day
comes and goes
in the same
heartbeat,
a disturbance
more felt than heard.
But listen.
The grosbeak sings
his presence
and departs,
leaving behind
the echo
of a motion
blending with night.
The air is cool.
A leaf utters
its own message
and falls
unnoticed.
Nothing awaits it.
* * *.
