HOW IT REALLY IS
A Zen Story

 

awakening into the twilight of the morning

I take my boat to fish among the silent mists

as the sun contemplates the course of the day

 

night playfully rousing daybreak with sweet kisses

light & shadow parting like a tender, long goodbye

mists dancing with every element in breathless balance

 

as I watch entranced

across the swirling sea-sky a shape emerges within the mist

I am halted in my dawning reverie, peering through the shadows

as the shape is delivered to me from the darkness

 

It is another boat.

 

another boat on this flowing nebula of mist and stars

obscured except its vaguest outline in the sleepy morning

another boat, right in the way of my course

 

I flap and squawk, shattering the sunrise harmony

“Hello!” I cry and “Turn Aside!” but from the other boat

there is no reply across the shimmering water

 

I’m appalled by this cretin

I raise my voice again in contempt to condemn him. Who is he

to steal my glorious dawning? Who is he to make me turn aside? and then

the curtain of fog rises in the sublime sunlight, and finally I see

 

The other boat is empty.