Six Notebooks

The smell of lilies, in full bloom,
Blooming in a vase on a table
Next to the meditation cushion
On which I sit, this morning, pre-dawn
The smell, not seeing the white flowers,
as I gaze, eyes half closed,
As instructed, eyes open but not fully,
At the white wall with its putty patch
For a nail once placed, just
At the top of my vision,
The smooth white patch on the textured wall
Occasionally diverted in thought
As to why a nail was placed
Three feet off the ground into this wall
For what? For what would be hung so low?
The smell brings remembrance of a woman
I never met, the mother of my former spouse
Who left this world forty years ago
That former spouse could not
Have lilies in the house, for her
They were funeral flowers
A too vivid reminder of her mother’s slow dying
Of cancer, over three years, and the casket
Surrounded by their blooms
I put this on paper as a way
Not to remember but to forget
A memory not mine which tinges
The lilies too often, I desire the blooms
Without the stench of death
Writing being the only means I have
To let go, even doing so I remember
The lines of Dogen, in the Genjo Koan
Flowers fade, weeds blossom
And yet, in this one precious life
We can also consider
The lilies of the field
How they want not
May I also
Want not
And blossom

PWS 2023.12.11