Paula Jones is a Guiding Teaching at Jikoji Zen Center and also a teacher at Floating Zendo in San Jose. Her Zen practice started in Santa Cruz when she attended a talk by Kobun Chino, who became her teacher. A few years later and with her young daughter, she moved into the residence next door to the Zendo and joined other students in taking care of the property and the practice. Not long after that, and with no real sesshin experience, she attended a Rohatsu sesshin sponsored by Haiku Zendo. It was there she first encountered Angie Boissevain, her current teacher, who was to ordain her as a priest years later. Sesshins may be a weird way to make new friends, but those friendships can become lasting and deep.

Taking time off from sesshins, she earned a Masters in Creative Writing at San Francisco State and soon began teaching English and poetry in Santa Cruz, then at a small town near a naval weapons center on the East Side of the Sierra Mountains. After moving to San Diego she taught many poetry workshops, including at the University of San Diego, where she taught literature and writing classes as a part-time teacher. After retiring, and before COVID, she began commuting to Jikoji again to attend sesshins. Meeting on Zoom is sometimes odd, but it  is also a good way to meet friends.

Full Transcript

So what I have prepared today I sent Mariko a screen share. And I was thinking there would be a lot of people reading the poems they brought in, maybe you have more than one. I am going to get some poems from over in my office and be right back. Joel and I like to travel. Yes, we do. It's been an exciting morning.

Hi, everyone. I'm just sharing this in the meantime. This is what Paula had sent across. I hope you don't mind that I shared this early, Paula.

No, I don't mind.

Okay. I think I can read it. So, "Frowns grew and shorter were the odd-fold tributes to a wing that mighty gorge which X1 did leap was something by some slight something or other and then wrought what nurturing bore, slim numptimes, fawning tone, their honors spawned, the languid hints unborn."

And then I can read the next one. It's not so hard. "Yet costly knew thee of that odd bitter doom seen last within the inner room of passion's bliss and order read meant much. One or two or three. The date perhaps, the drape to see through. Round state the wrinkled age and some kept places and gaudy robes still fierce as wolves packed to a whim would a haughty defame. Nay, could names afford the blame the adage light outlived the wilted hue still pools the sinewed hark the mark. Boom, neither knew that stark bridge crossed by a few."

Oh, and on the top, the top left, my left entrance into the Ostrakhan Khan. I can't remember right now. Yeah, I guess I found that in a magazine because I, you know, I have it here. I'm glad I could read it. I still have more poems to read. I'll go get more forms later, but I would like to hear the ones you brought.

Yeah. Paula, would you just like us all just to chime in when we see fit or?

Well, yeah, just kind of raise your, raise your real hand, not the one on the screen, because I can't see that right now.

Okay, Joel.

Okay, hi, thank you. I'll read a poem of a friend of mine, whom I knew when we were living in North Carolina. It must have been around 20 years ago, and her name is Roseanne Cogshall. And this is called "The Prisoner."

My ghost passes out without a nod.

Where I'm hidden, all light is made of ash

and sifts apart when the wind shifts.

If anybody dares to lift this lid,

I'm cold afraid my bones will drift up,

silver, single, ready to catch fire.

If you'd like, you can read that again.

Okay. Yeah, because it's kind of faint. Oh, I got to get real close. Is that better? Okay, sorry. It's called "The Prisoner."

My ghost passes out without a nod.

Where I'm hidden, all light is made of ash

and sifts apart when the wind shifts.

If anybody dares to lift this lid,

I'm cold afraid my bones will drift up,

silver, single, ready to catch fire.

That reads beautifully aloud. It's the sound is so important, and the rhythm, and the S sounds, and so on.

Yeah, it's great. Oh, thank you. It's a wonderful poem. She was a great person, and she was also actually mentally, you know, really mentally ill. I mean, she'd wander around, but she was fabulous. Really sweet and so talented. There are many poems like hers. She was great. So there you are. Thank you.

All right, Alisa.

I can't hear you.

Yeah, I knew it. I have a question about the poem that you shared on the shared screen. Can you tell me anything about that?

I'll share it again. I think the poem is the whole thing. They've combined the art and the words, which are pretty nice. Then there's things written in the margin. So I was communicating with Monica a few days ago, and I asked her if she wanted to do poetry and art workshop together, because I just found out she was an artist. So we are going to do that. So this is an example. But if you want to know what it is, you'll have to be more specific. It is called "Bridge." Could you tell us more? Did you do all the visual art? Or did you work on it?

No, I didn't. I could show another one, but I didn't get it to Mariko in time. I thought, well, I'll save it, because I thought there'd be more people. So that's all I can say, Alisa. I found the other one I was going to read, I found in Scientific American. What is the ostrich? I have no idea.

Is this your poem or somebody else's?

I have done some weird things, just as experiments, to write my own poetry. And one of the classes I took, I learned from my teacher. I went to a workshop and I gave a reading in San Antonio, and Mary Leader has this, like she gets a piece of like red paper or blue paper. I made mine out of a part of a file folder and just cut random long oblong notches in it. And then hold it to a text, and you see what the words are through. You see what words come through. And you can keep moving it and doing different things. So it's like an experiment, but it ends up being poetry.

If you have the mind of a poet, you can make it into a poem, but it'll be different. I've never done any like this. And I took Sumi-e classes thinking I could put short poems like that you see in calligraphy on Sumi-e, but I've done this Sumi-e, but my calligraphy is not great. So I'm going to keep trying it. I can just do it with Western calligraphy. Anyway, I just like the way the Japanese do it and the Chinese with poems or inscriptions with the image. So that's another thing to try.

A lot of suggestions. I like the red of it. And also when you read it, when you read the red, it...

You read it all. You read, yeah.

It flowed like stream of consciousness. I thought it's like Ferlinghetti or something.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's one of those experiments, experimental poetry. They just mashed the words together in certain phrases. And they were...

Yeah, right. Yeah, like one of the things he did, I was reading about that was also from the Surrealists, is you have a text and you can... You have two texts and they're different. They're from different sources and you sort of, I think you could fold each one in the middle and then put them together or you can go... You can take a line from one and then take a line from another one and put it under that line and so on. Basically, you can do whatever you want.

I noticed that since I began teaching, I haven't really had much time to write poetry. I really haven't. I don't think I've written anything since I started teaching. And I'm hoping that I will be able to do that again this summer. I am giving a poetry workshop at the end of June, the last. It starts on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And Sunday is when I usually give the poetry and Zen talk, which is just people bring in their poems. But people are... It's going to be offered for the first time for me. I'll be able to be in person at Jikoji. I've been on Zoom this whole time. And I'm hoping people will come and it'd be great if some of you came. Because you get a chance to wander around Jikoji and then sit down and really notice, be aware and take your notebook with you. It's not necessarily going to turn into a poem, but I'll show you one. And I don't know. Will this work, Mariko, just holding it up of this Jikoji?

You can try that. I'm going to stop and then highlight you.

So this one I dedicated to the floating Zendo. I actually wrote the notes for it in the sitting on the floor in the international part of the airport, because that was where I could sit on the floor when I was going back from San Jose to wherever I lived. I don't think it was San Diego yet. But anyway, it was either San Diego or that desert town that I flew to. OK, if you'd like, I'll read it and I'll hold it up first. This is the title. It's upside down. No, this is Jikoji, but it's backwards. But anyway, however it works, it says notes from Jikoji, Paula Jones. Are all these going to turn upside down?

It looked right side up to us, so that's OK. Originally, when you put it up.

OK, well, I'm just going to flip through it because I think it's too small to read. Oh, I'll read you the one about I was talking about something reminded me of it when we were talking before everybody got here. It's the. I'll read them.

Drying dishes, dusting altars, trimming candles, list of chores to botch.

Blowing out candles, splattering hot wax on my face.

Mopping the shower flooded bathroom with a rug praying,

At least when I make my next mistake, let no one see it.

Sifting incense with a sieve and a spoon, ashes under my nails.

See my face in the water of the second bowl easily.

Third day face. Third night dream about Steve Martin and John Candy.

Planes, trains, automobiles. John explained to me about Steve.

Yes, he's upright and anxious, but still he keeps on trying.

At the edge of a clearing at the foot of a twig shrine,

a paper mache painted dragon. Cougars left and right

and under a peaked roof, tiny farm animals, pig, horse, cow,

hawk feather, seashell, rock crystal.

These are quotes from different people, two different people. "At times we have something that needs attention, not a thought or a concept, something underneath the thought. Somewhere in the breath, along the breath, is an understood place." Carol Snow. She's a Zen poet that I really like and she writes, she writes very spare and very innovative subjects.

Mouse wreck us last night, a priest scoops up a marmalade cat.

The sun sets behind clouds over the bay like an island left behind.

Sinks like a cruise ship going down, party lights still on.

A lot of these short, that's like, these are in parts I put in the book, but they're in the book. So, they're in the book. So, they're in the book. So, they're in the book. Sure that's like these are in parts I put, I put asterisks between them. So, they're like almost all of these are like this, that they are, well this one anyway, and the one before. So, the sun sets behind clouds over the bay like an island left behind, and then in parentheses sinks like a cruise ship going down, party lights still on.

I didn't mean to read this poem, but since we don't have very many poems to read, let's read. Okay, leaving, taking from a kitchen bowl a bough pear so subtly flavored, I think. The cook must have held it in her hands with spices, lingering incense on my own hands. So in parentheses. So I can talk about that if you want, looking for one there. I think I skipped.

I have a question. I have a question. Were all of these poems in your collection done during a certain time, or how did you group this series of poems together?

These are all poems after a sesshin during, I mean, it was everything I noticed at this sesshin I was not writing while I was sitting. I really wasn't writing. I don't think I was writing while I was there, but while I was waiting in the airport, I jotted some notes down, just notes, and then I refined them later into this book years later. My friends and I have a sort of a tiny book club, we call it. I have examples of tiny books here, all different sizes that we've made. The three of us, we're going to have a meeting in two weeks again. We haven't met during COVID at all.

Ah, that's great. Thank you. Actually, I have kind of two questions which maybe are the same question. Okay, one is almost unanswerable, which is you mentioned the mind of a poet. So the question becomes, what is the mind of a poet? Is there any way you can articulate that with words?

No, it was mind of a poet, not in general. Poets, of course, all have different minds. If you, you know, I've written poetry, I had my first published poem at a Girl Scout camp when I was like nine, because they, and I just naturally wrote poems, and then you naturally meet other people that write poems, and I have hundreds of different poems in this house taken from journals, and I've also published poems in journals, and national journals, a few, and other ones. I majored in creative writing. My master's was in creative writing at San Francisco State, which was a very rich place. But I think if you really love poetry, and you must be here as the only four people who are here, you must love poetry. So you read a lot of poetry, you read a lot of poetry. Just read it and let it soak in. And there are manuals on writing poetry that I could send to you, but to give you, they give you tips for writing, you know, prompts for writing poems.

Right, actually, that leads a little to the second question, and then I'll try to shut up. The second question is that when you're talking about Roseanne's poem, you're talking about how she repeats consonants. And in, I think it was the second stanza of your poem, you marked the metrical feet. And so I wonder what you can say about the craft of poetry and the, you know, your feelings towards the craft of poetry and how it works for you or doesn't work for you.

Well, which poem did I mark the metrical feet?

The one that you shared at the very beginning with the pictures on it.

With the pictures on it?

Yeah, the orange, you know, the very first one you shared.

Oh, when I read this one. Yeah, this is not my poem, but I didn't mark it. No, that was part of it.

Oh, that's not your poem.

No, no, no. This is from, what's it from? Oh, this is from The New Yorker. That's what it's from. And yeah, but this, yeah, I don't have the date of the, oh, it's April 11th, 2022. So basically I found this almost the last minute, you know, I found it and then I lost it and then I found it again.

So did The New Yorker have all the writing around it as well?

Yeah, this is a photograph by a photographer from The New Yorker.

How fabulous.

Having fun, you know, having fun. So you can download this if you go to The New Yorker, April 11th. What did I say? Whatever I said. She's right. Whatever she said. April 11th, 2022, last month.

Okay, great. So what is your personal attitude towards that kind of thing?

I like it. I think it would be fun to do. And for me, I don't think I would do it as an artwork because I'm not an artist, even though I love art and poetry together. But it's an art poem. It's an art, it's a painting slash poem. But it also, I used it as a reference to something that could be a springboard for the experimental art of, I told you about like making that piece of paper, like if it was this. Mine, like I said, is a file folder and then I'd have little oblongs cut out.

Oh, yeah. And I didn't write that way for a long time, but then I started reading a lot of writers that I loved. I went to workshops that went in San Antonio with Mary Leader. And like I said, I've been to workshops at Naropa and read my poetry at Naropa, you know, in the big auditorium. And Kobun and Maya's picture was on the wall over the water fountain. And it was a great thing. And I actually read from several of my chapbooks in there. But I never, you know, and I got a lot of praise for my poetry, but I never, I had tried to send works off, but I only tried to send two manuscripts off. And those from really old poetry.

What I plan to do now is just start writing down my dreams and taking teeny snippets from them and doing other experimental things. Writing my dreams, writing in my journal. I haven't been doing that. And finding phrases. And I also, of course, I write down Zen things too now because I'm going to be giving a talk on it. But I think I can bring in some

I don't know the name of this one, but I think my mother read it to me. He was babysitting us for a while, so he probably read it to me. My mother was working as a nurse. And then as I got older, I just started reading it to myself. And they were just lovely poems with beautiful illustrations. "Lincoln Lincoln and Nod one night set off and something boat" and "Raggedy Man. He works for Paw. He's the raggiest man I ever saw. Oh, Raggedy, Raggedy, Raggedy Man."

And I also read when I was seven, I apparently started reading Alice in Wonderland because I think I must have started when I was four or five because I have me making my first cursive letters. Maybe they're either cursive or they're just plain letters, practicing my letters as a U and an L. And there are a lot of great poems in Alice in Wonderland. Really great for... Yeah, the caterpillar's poem and the walrus and the carpenter and you know, the kinds that children like.

I've also taught poetry in the schools to kids from like, I think the youngest, I guess I said this from six till to ten and I tell you what. They get better the younger they are. Yeah, I can imagine. And they love it. They just loved it. And the young ones really did. The older ones were, you know, very too cool for school. But there were some very good ones from there, too. I can't find them right now. I had to give them back. Thank you.

Yeah. So that article from the New Yorker, it reminds me of, you know, lines that like John Lennon would write a song or Bob Dylan, you know, it'd be all scratched out and reworked. Right. And I think you all know the final product, but you could see the mind of the poet or the musician. Right. As they were coming through it. So when you said art and poetry together, is that what they call it? I can't remember. I just saw the word. I see the word frequently is ekphrastic include all arts or just... and just musical arts.

All right, so what I brought to share today, I'd like to go with, first of all, last week we had about half as many people on Saturday because Monica was leading Zen and Art and we were going to expand. And I don't know if people got scared or they were all too busy, but it was her and Tim and I, and we discussed for the full time, different ways of bringing art into, whether it's art poetry or different experiments to do things rather than talk about. And so that became very interesting and I'm glad you're going to collaborate with Monica on that. That's gonna be looking forward to that.

And the word dream came up a couple of times today. I'd like to share a dream I had just two nights ago. It was Joel was playing the shakuhachi. He had his full robes on and we were in a three story wooden house in Oakland and you were playing very sparse notes like I was doing earlier before the meditation. And I heard you and you didn't know I was in the house. So I was playing echoes of the exact same notes you were playing and then you thought, is this an echo or is this? And you kept going up and down the stairs looking for these sounds and I was playing with you and we were doing a duet. You didn't know you were doing a duet and I was laughing the whole time. It was a great dream.

Oh, that's fabulous. Thank you. I mean, you're not the only one who thought about me playing the shakuhachi with you, but we should hang out. What can I tell you? Exactly.

So getting back to the calligraphy that you were talking about, mine says, "itchi an jōbutsu," enlightenment in a single note. As if that's some kind of a goal, if you hit the, in the shakuhachi world, we say if you hit the perfect note, you achieve enlightenment. Well, I look at it a different way as every note is already enlightened. Right, I do too. I do too, definitely.

Your calligraphy- It's the same as Kobun's, what he said in mine too, each step. Each step. Each step. It's not gonna be- Is the dial. Yeah, it's already enlightenment. So that's great.

So I've been talking with my wife recently about ambition and we were talking about our careers and things. And so this is a poem by Mary Oliver, one of my favorites called, "There is a Place Beyond Ambition." And someone sent me this card about, with the shot, I'll just hold it up, I don't know if you can see. Oh yeah. The shakuhachi player and on this- Oh yeah. It says, just listening. So I put the two together and I'll send this to you, Marie-Felix, so that we can share. So it's got the picture of just listening with the poem that goes with it and I'll read it.

"There is a place beyond ambition. When the flute players couldn't think of what to say next, they laid down their pipes. Then they laid down themselves beside the river and just listened. Some of them, after a while, jumped up and disappeared back into the busy town, but the rest, so quiet, not even thoughtful, are still there, still listening."

That's beautiful. So great. You know, this happens at poetry readings that I go to, with the poetry in Zen and I go, I just read something like that and I don't have it in front of me now. Like I said, I thought we'd be reading a lot of poems, but oh yeah, this is it. "The temple bells have stopped ringing, but the sound keeps coming out of the flowers." I think that's Basho. Not sure. Yeah. It's great.

You know, I'm just saying, like I'm wondering, so yeah, Mariko, Alisa, do you guys have poems? I mean, we're all supposed to come up with poems. Yeah. I have a couple more, but go for it. Alisa, would you like to go?

Okay, I'll start. This is actually a Zen type poem. It comes from, you may have heard the story of the young woman, Ryonin, who was born into a wealthy family and studied Zen intensely until she was married off to another house, aristocratic family. She had children and ran the house, but always wanted to enter the monastery to continue her practice. When her family was grown, she no longer had the same responsibilities and her husband said she could enter a training temple. But the roshi at the monastery told her that she was too beautiful to be a monk because she would distract the other monks. So distraught, she took a hot iron and burned her face so she would no longer be as beautiful. When the roshi saw this intense action, he immediately allowed her to enter. She practiced there for a long time and received inka from him and eventually founded a temple with his blessing. She made a lot of beautiful calligraphy and when she was about to die, she wrote a death poem that resonated deeply with me. And so I'll read you, there are a couple of translations of it and so this is the first one that she wrote.

"In the autumn of my 66th year, I've already lived a long time. The intense moonlight is bright upon my face. There's no need to discuss the principles of koan study. Just listen carefully to the wind outside the pines and cedars."

And then there's another translation of the same poem and this is it.

"This is the 66th autumn I have seen. The moon still lights my face. Don't ask me about the meaning of Zen teachings. Just listen to what the pines and cedars say on a windless night."

That spoke to me. That's lovely. Is that from a particular book or did you do some of the translations? No. How did it? This was given to me because I was, it came from a book, I'm sure. It was a book that had calligraphy and it's a book that also describes not only the art but also their lives. And this is the only woman that's discussed in the book. And I think I've heard a similar story, probably the same person, Ryonin, in the book, The Hidden Lamp, Stories of the Spirit Women. Yeah. But I hadn't heard the poem before.

So when I was talking to my friend, he said, well, I was saying that I needed to come up with some poems for today. And this one really does. Just last night, listening to the gentle murmurings of the, we have queen palm trees at our yard, in our garden. And when the wind blows through them, it has a very particular sound. And the birds in the magnolia trees were chattering with their neighbors in the hedge. And it just reminded me very much of this poem. Anyway, that's my share. Thank you.

I'm so glad. I have a book that has poems in it and artwork, but I don't know if it's the one you have. It's called 77 Dances. And then I have another one next to it. I'll get it. I can give people the names. The poet has left the room. I know. Oh, lovely. Okay. The Kwan Yin remains. I just said the poet has left the screen, but the Kwan Yin in the background remains. It's actually, I'm sure it were, but it's in this photograph and it always has the, yeah, I don't need that light here. Yeah, see, it's just an abstract photograph. Well, it's flowers. I think it's anemones. Yeah. Or ranunculus, something.

This book is 77 Dances. And it has clouds. Clouds. This is by a female artist, Okasa Okon. It's called Clouds. And somehow there are no poems with it. That's the poem. There are no poems with it. Oh, beautiful. Yeah. Okay. I'm writing down these titles so I can share with everybody too. Oh, good. If you have other titles or anybody has titles of books to share. Well, this one has a lot of, it has stories about all the different times and the dates of when these poems were written.

Mariko, did you have poems to read? Yeah, I do. One is by Keugen. I stumbled upon this while I was up at Jikoji and they have a pretty great library. So, and it's just called Paths and it struck me. And I'll read it to you.

"I have fallen off the path a time or two but the gaze of the Buddha of light is forever warding me back. I've been known to switch paths as well. I've always preferred the side roads to the highways. There's no adventure in following a compass bearing a map can only tell you where others have gone before. Let me strike out through the wild places. If the path ahead splits in two, I'll take them both."

So it really spoke to me, just where I am in my practice right now. I'm just in the... I think all your poems are speaking to each other. Like this, since this, and ones that I've read recently. This happens every time. And often there's a whole lot of people.

Well, I'll give you the name of the other book. It's called Stephen Addis. Who mentions Jereau as one of the finest calligraphers in the country. Oh, that's great. Yeah. The Art of Zen. And it also has a lot of women, artists and poets in it. Oh, I got that. I have to bring it down off the shelf. It's crying to me right now. Oh, that's great.

I have one more. It's from this book. This is the First Free Women. And it's a translation of original poems that were from the early Buddhist nuns. The guy, Matty Winegast. So it's not like an exact translation, but they call it an ancient collection re-imagined. Re-imagined, right. Yeah.

So this one is called Sila, The Rock.

"Long after the front gates swung closed behind me, I could still hear them. Why talk so much about death? Find a husband to share your bed. Bring children into the world to leave behind after you're gone. But ever since I invited my own death into bed with me, I no longer feel lonely or afraid of the dark. What do we really bring into the world? What do we leave behind? A gate swings closed, then opens. Where does it come from? Where does it all go?"

Once again, please. Sure. Once again, please. And Sila, The Rock. Each of these poems is named after a particular person, and then it has a title. So I guess this woman's name was Sila.

"Long after the front gates swung closed behind me, I could still hear them. Why talk so much about death? Find a husband to share your bed. Bring children into the world to leave behind after you're gone. But ever since I invited my own death into bed with me, I no longer feel lonely or afraid of the dark. What do we really bring into the world? What do we leave behind? A gate swings closed, then opens. Where does it come from? Where does it all go?"

I can die now. Yeah. So, yeah. So, yeah. I was never that into poetry until I started practicing, and it just seems to kind of go with the territory. And certainly, Dogen's poems are amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Dogen. Whoa, all water. Yeah, Dogen does what? To what do I like in this world? A dew drop. Moonlight reflected in the dew drop. Dripping from a crane's bill. Yeah, that's Dogen. I'm glad you memorized that. I'm trying to memorize. Yeah, that's a beautiful one.

Yeah, I don't call it memorizing. I learned this from Kim Rosen. She's the poet up in the Bay Area. She said, learn by heart. Memorizing means we use our brain. Learn by heart. Oh, right, yeah. Learn by heart. It means that you make it part of yourself. Yeah, I like that.

That reminds me of a story of Russia. In the Soviet days, like Mandelstam, he did not like Stalin, and Stalin knew it. So if you had a copy of Mandelstam's poems, you might very well be sent to the Gulag. And there were other poets, same position. So what they did is memorize it. They memorized a volume of poems overnight, and then got it to their friend, the next friend who wanted to memorize the volume of poems. And that would happen until, you know, one of them might have been reported to the KKK, KGB. But the Russians, you know, you meet them and they recite like, you know, 20 minutes of Pushkin. It's incredible. And the- Yeah, it is. It's incredible. I mean, the importance of art for those people, well, they were all musicians. And, you know, it's the same with Ukraine, you know? I mean, Eastern Europe, when you're under such a tyrant as Stalin, art becomes so important for these people. And I was thinking memory, you know, becomes part of you.

Yeah, I think there's some places in the Middle East now where women are doing secret poetry readings. And if they get caught, they're sent to jail. But that's so important right now for them. Absolutely. Yeah. Always. Yes, absolutely.

Well, Joel, do you have another one? Yeah, yeah. I have, okay, a poem by Cavafy. Yeah, Cavafy is a Greek poet who lived in Alexandria in the first decades of the 20th century. And he was amazing. He worked in a small bureaucratic office under the British colonial regime. He was openly gay. And he was fascinated essentially like an unbelievably erudite scholar in antiquity, Greece and Rome. Anyway, here's one of his poems.

"When they are roused, try to guard them, poet, however few there are that can be kept, the visions of your loving. Set them half hidden in your phrases. Try to sustain them, poet, when they are roused in your brain at night or in the glare of noon."

Well, again then, huh? Again? Yeah.

"When they are roused, try to guard them, poet, however few there are that can be kept, the visions of your loving. Set them half hidden in your phrases. Try to sustain them, poet, when they are roused in your brain at night or in the glare of noon."

Yeah, I like when you read twice. The first time it kind of washes over me like a wave. I don't catch, I just catch the drift, but not the words. And then the second time it's like, what's speaking to me in here? So I really liked that. Thanks, I feel the same. Yeah.

So yeah, the last one I have to share is Rumi. I think Rumi's poems are more zen than many zen poems. For me. And when I play at Rumi workshops, I always, I usually begin with this one, the reed flute. So I'm gonna mash music and poetry together here. And the idea is that Rumi says, oh, enough words have been spoken. And then he goes on to write his Masnavi masterpiece with 80,000 more verses in five books. So that's so zen right there.

But this one's called "The Story of the Reed Flute" and it's the opening verse of his Masnavi. So I'm gonna play and read and play.

["The Story of the Reed Flute"]

Listen to the story told by the reed of being separated. Ever since I've been pulled from this reed bed, I've made this crying sound. Anyone separated from someone they love understands what I say. Anyone separated from a source longs to go back. At any gathering, I am there, mingling with the laughing and the grieving. A friend to each, but few can hear the secrets hidden within the notes.

["The Story of the Reed Flute"]

Thank you so much. Wow. That was incredible. Thank you for sharing, everybody. Does anybody have more to share?

Well, I could find some more. I have to get up again. Okay, we have time for just a little bit more and then we'll go into the dedication.

Okay. I'm not gonna read one of mine. I'll just read one that I like. That was incredible, Bob. That was really lovely. And the way you recited it, it really was wonderful.

Yeah, I skipped the part where I recited in Farsi.

I don't think there's any Farsi speakers here.

It doesn't matter. I mean, I love hearing poetry in languages I don't know.

I know, it's even better, isn't it?

Well, I don't know if it's better, it's different. It's just incredible.

Yeah, one of the great experiences was Medea in ancient Greek. The classics department of Barnard in Columbia. It's unbelievable, unbelievable. I mean, you hear a modern Greek, which is what they do in Greece now, but this was the classic department. So they did their best to actually use the vowels of ancient Greece. It was unbelievable, unbelievable.

Yeah, we'll have a poetry workshop where you have to read a poem in other than your native language. Then you'll see nobody showing up.

Yeah, right. Well, of course, these people could really speak ancient Greek. You don't wanna hear me reading a poem in Farsi, for example, but I'd love to hear you read a poem in Farsi.

Yeah. Okay, I have one that I'd like to read that I read the last time I was at Jikoji. And I just introduced it as, this is from the book, The Wild Beret, beautiful book. It's about Stanley Kunitz. And this writer is writing down what he says. She's recording what he says, writer friend of his.

So I said, I introduced this one. Here's a poem Stanley Kunitz wrote for his daughter. I started reading it. I started reading it and I said, "Summer is late, my heart. Words plucked out of air some 40 years ago when I was wild with love and torn into," and so on. I'm gonna read the whole thing, and then when I read it, I read the whole thing. And having said it was for his daughter, okay.

Summer is late, my heart.

Words plucked out of the air

some 40 years ago when I was wild with love

and torn almost into, scatter like leaves this night

of whistling wind and rain.

It is my heart that's late,

it is my song that's flown.

Outdoors all afternoon

under a gunmetal sky

staking my garden down,

I kneel to the crickets trilling

underfoot as if about

to burst from their crusty shells;

and like a child again

marvel to hear so clear

and brave a music pour

from such a small machine.

What makes the engine go?

Desire, desire, desire,

the longing for the dance

stirs in the buried life.

One season only,

and it's done.

So let the battered old willow

thrash against the windowpanes

and the house timbers creak.

Darling, do you remember

the man you married? Touch me,

remind me who I am.

Yeah, this is a book that she recorded. It's A Century in the Garden. He died when he was 99.

Paula, can I ask you a favor and have you send the particular poems that you shared with us to me via email? Like you could take a picture of what it is and the text. And then, cause I wanna incorporate all our poems into a document like we had done before.

You mean all the poems that I've read?

Yeah, I know from your book, you read quite a bit. So if that's too difficult, that's fine. But just anything you can change.

From this book, yeah, the one that I made. Yeah. I also, but. But this one I recommend from Stanley Kunitz and it's called whatever it was called.

Okay. What was the name of the poem.

Let's see. There's so many beautiful poems in this, in this, from a man. He was a poet, almost all his life. Was he the poet laureate of the US?

Yeah, I believe so. He taught at Columbia. He was every honor, including the Pulitzer, Bollingen Prize, Frost Medal from Poetry Society of America, consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress, and again when the post was called US poet laureate.

Yes. So, what was the name of the poem you just read.

I have to go back to it. Find it. Oh, okay. Desire, as I look back at it, it's called "Touch Me". The poem is called "Touch Me".

Okay, got it. Well, I think, unless anybody has more to share maybe we should go on to the dedication, Joel.

Oh, go ahead. We're going to do the four vows right?

Yes. And the middle verse is going to be in Japanese. So, what I've been working with is playing the four vows, have the sheet music for it, and playing the four vows. I'm just going to do the first line here so that when we recite it you'll see how much faster it goes. But this is called, this is the first line of the four vows, Shu Jo Mu Hen Se Gan Do.

Shu Jo Mu Hen Se Gan Do

And the rest go on like that. So, someday we're going to sing, hopefully sing that all together. Because reciting it takes about 15 seconds. Playing it takes about four minutes. So, hopefully we can all do that sometimes.