alone in the dark
alone in the dark, waiting for the moon.
tonight, she leans in close
carefully parting the clouds, and says here,
hold this, I’ve brought you a small piece
of the sun as comfort against the night.
trust the light, she says, trust this moon
and these transcendent stars.
trust the return of the sun and the coming of dawn.
trust in the eventual dissolution of despair,
and the inevitable reawakening
of your own vast and radiant human heart.
© 2020 jafink/oldbonesnewsnow.com
attending the breath
in the first grey light
of this winter morning
the sound of the wind
through the glass, this wind
that was blowing
before breath arose, this wind
that was blowing
before thought arose, this wind
that will blow long
after the very last thought
has blown away
© 2019 jafink/oldbonesnewsnow.com
The Shambhala teachings speak of “effortless effort,” the quality of effort without struggle. I’ve never been very good at this myself – at one point in my career my nickname was “the bulldozer.” But I’m workin’ on it…
This poem speaks to it as will a “Reflection” that I’ll publish soon.
sunset clouds
none of those things
there’s a voice in my head
that drives me to try,
always
to seek to change the shape
of the world, the insidious
insistence that simply living
within this life is
insufficient.
knee deep in the stream,
nothing I do seems to alter its course.
my hands grow numb
from holding back the water,
from trying to force it
back up the mountain.
we manufacture none of those things
that might actually
save us.
drop the sharp tools, the knives
the axes
and the snaggle-toothed saws.
the heart’s work is to stop
striving,
to attend
to this day completely,
to bear witness — come,
let’s find ourselves a hillside
and watch the gathering of the clouds.
the grass here is cool beneath our feet.
perhaps in the deep night
the waters will again begin to rise,
but for today,
ours is but to abide,
and await the coming of the rains.
©jafink/oldbones.newsnow.com
My father, Allen Medford Fink, died of lung cancer in 1986 at age 72. He was not an easy man. As I explained once to an adult nephew, he was our father, so we wanted to be close to him, but it could be a dangerous place to stand. He taught us to be strong. But as I grow older myself, I can see that if my brother and I are, in our own ways, more gentle, well, he must certainly have given us the seeds of this gentleness as well.
My father was 42 years old when I was born, so he was dead by the time my sons Patrick and Nathan were born. But his presence remains. In the Buddhist cosmology, the “three times” of past, present and future and not as solid as we ordinarily take them to be. Perhaps this is how I know that if he were to meet my sons today, I am certain he would be amazed. I am certain that he would be most pleased.
My father with me, the baby, and my big brother Joe on the lawn of our small house in Detroit in 1958.
Written April 2015 in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah —
rains
the wind
is beginning to howl
a late season snow coming in.
by morning, everything
will be blown back
into white.
I remember my father
staring out the kitchen window,
massive and simmering,
considering the evening sky.
he left the farm just before the war-
came North, but never lost the habit
of weather,
of watching the clouds
for signs of impending danger
of flashing from sun into thunder
with no warning.
we’re grateful for the snow-
it’s been dry here for too long.
redemption can come
through the blessings of rain
of a rain that falls hard all day
of a rain that might protect us
from the lightning
from rage without warning
from the flames
t
hat can race up from the valley
and sweep us all away
incinerating everything
©jafink/oldbones.newsnow.com