I saw Nuri sitting in meditation so motionless that not even one hair moved. I asked,
"From whom did you learn such deep meditation?"
"I learned it from a cat waiting by a mouse hole.
The cat was much stiller than I.
~ Shibli
This is where I live,
at the edge of this ploughed field
where sunlight catches meadow grasses
and turns them silver-yellow....
I prefer it here, at the line
where the forest intersects
the field, where deer and groundhog
move back and forth to feed
and hide. On these juts and outcroppings
I can look both ways, moving
As that crow does, all gracelessness
and sway....
This life is not easy,
but wings mix up with leaves there,
like the moment when surf turns into
undertow or breaker, and I can
poise myself and hold
for a long time, profoundly
neither one place nor another.
at the edge of this ploughed field
where sunlight catches meadow grasses
and turns them silver-yellow....
I prefer it here, at the line
where the forest intersects
the field, where deer and groundhog
move back and forth to feed
and hide. On these juts and outcroppings
I can look both ways, moving
As that crow does, all gracelessness
and sway....
This life is not easy,
but wings mix up with leaves there,
like the moment when surf turns into
undertow or breaker, and I can
poise myself and hold
for a long time, profoundly
neither one place nor another.