Zen Sonnet

Elizabeth Spires

It was April and we were reading the book about Zen

you were writing your Zen poems and we were talking

about the moment we were in and I was thinking thoughts

that were not Zen: how I know too much too little to teach you

and then I stepped back from each thought and watched it

disappear a horse without a rider over a sharp-edged horizon.

Spring was a pale shade of yellow a green that kept deepening

there was desire and there was a sense of unfolding and I thought

how we can do anything there is no need for an excess of feeling

we can walk through the door that was made for entering and exiting

abandoning the poems that were never ours though we wrote them

to the one who walks into this room when we are gone.

So let us go out into the world and wander a little

beggars with empty bowls in straw hats grass sandals.