Questions of Silence

In loving kindness Vallecitos

For the river of smooth rocks that hold stories of the ancient ones,

For the Ponderosa that sprouted before the first Europeans arrived,

For the fish that swim the icy waters of Vallecitos in springtime,

For the visitors who come to sit and practice in silence, and awaken,

For the teachers who share their wisdom with imperfection and grace,

For the silence that penetrates our hearts and imprints our souls.

For the beaver, and great blue heron, and bull snake, and oriole,

For the lessons that come with tears, smiles, shame, and forgiveness,

For all those who have passed through the doors of the meditation hall,

Thank you (you know who you are) for preserving this place for us all.

Prayer for the retreat

I’m moving toward silence at 8,700 feet
Into the mountains and woods for quiet,
Off the grid into the great dance of life
Where thoughts and no thoughts collide,
Where the tumbling of words on this blog
Cease and wait for questions of silence
To rise and fall in the tavern of my soul,
Where sunrise and sunset become one.
Where grasses whisper unknown words.
My prayer is for release and forgiveness,
May the sound of silence transcend us.

mothers day, for daddy

Was it Sutton on the mound, or Sherry?
The cheers could not make my dad smile,
nor did he listen as Scully called the game.
Dad’s mind went to her in the crowd’s roar.

Tonight our boys won just like before,
but this time I befriended silence alone.
Has it been 35 years since we sat in the
reserved seats between third and home
as Drysdale set the record for shutouts?

I would hold my dad tonight if I could.
Forgiveness would strike out the side.
We’d hear Scully call that game again.
Dad, did you hear that? Koufax did it!
He shut ‘em down with a perfect game!
Mama was three years gone by then.

Late that night, awake and scared, I
crept down the stairs and into his bed.
With one ear pressed against his
heart, I heard the bu-bump, bu-bump,
bu-bump of forever, like a Dodger game
that goes on and on in extra innings,
until finally, it ends. Did you hear that
Dad? Game over. Our team won again!
Mama got the save. You got the win.

Call Me by My True Names

mother’s day

Yesterday, my mom died. Or let’s say she died on

May 7, 1962, at 47. Cancer killed her, or cigarettes.

I didn’t get to say goodbye, a seven-year-old boy

left alone in the hall, smelling the dead smell that

hospitals spew everywhere. My two older brothers

got to say goodbye that final day, but mama looked

at me from her hospital bed, agony on her face, and

shook her head, asked my dad to keep me outside,

didn’t want me to see her that way, her face contorted.

So I waited by myself in the hall. Yesterday it seemed,

and yesterday, I visited the place where they buried

her ashes. For nearly forty years, no one in my family

had a clue where her body went after it was “donated

to science.” My dad “didn’t remember,” and neither of

my mom’s younger brothers knew either. So for all that

time, I thought they just passed my mom’s body around

a teaching hospital, pulling and tugging and studying her

organs, until they tossed her away into the garbage.

Only by serendipity and reporting (I was a journalist) did

I run into a former nurse who said, no, they would have

taken good care of your mom, and she’s probably buried

nearby. So in 1998, I found her, or let’s say I read an old

yellow card that said her ashes were buried with hundreds

of other donated-to-science bodies in an unmarked grave.

We put a marker over the spot, dedicated to those who

served the cause of medicine, but also added my mom’s

name and the words, “Loving mother-Red Cross Nurse.”

Yesterday, I visited her finally on the day she died long

ago. “I love you mama, I miss you,” I said, and I used my

tears to wipe the dust and dirt from her name. I haven’t

talked with her that way in a long, long time. For some

reason, her death always comes around Mother’s Day.

She held me once, sang to me in the bathtub, washed

out my mouth with soap when I used the “N” word

when I was three, not having a clue what the word

meant. She smoked two packs a day, Cools mostly,

and Chesterfields, but cut down to one pack a day

when she was pregnant with me, at least that’s what

my dad said. Now, they say childhood trauma has a

way of wounding the brain, and I’ve spent years

treating that wound, letting the memories flow down

the river mostly, the way Buddha would want me to do.

But yesterday was May 7, and I felt okay letting them

linger, washing over me, feeling them again, sobbing for

my mom. God, did I love her. God, do I miss her. You could

say each day the sun rises and sets, I’m one day farther

from her, or maybe I’m one day closer to our first reunion.

evergreen

I was on the backside of the mountain hiking down when something caught my eye. What an elegant surprise, I thought; he’s coming back around after all this time, for me. As the weight of years lifted, the old friend stood on the path before me, watching. A song of angels washed over the brook. The wind stood still. Our eyes caught and we smiled. Who would have thought I would come this way? On a course that led through the altar of a bleeding one-breasted nurse; through a cold house of darkness and mold; through dirt piles of rock throwers and arm bruisers; through minions of frocked talkers; through tangled vineyards of earthen justice, red flags, and black eagles; through iron bars of trapped innocents, decades of utter blindness, fiery love, sacred rejection, and careless blasphemy, I trod for years, bidden by the certainty of the unseen trail, without purpose or pattern, or so I thought. Yet it took me back up and over a frozen stone mountaintop where my breath came free, no faith required. As the waning sun paused for somber reflection atop the home range, I could see his face more clearly now. From our vantage, sunbeams raced the twilight to touch canyons dipped in purple, gold, and red. An eight-part  crescendo of a Capella voices echoed off trumpets, oboes, bassoons, and violins, triple forte through the final measure. In the silence of the moment that opened between the last choral echo and the stunned ovation that never ends, my friend beckoned, and his voice called to me. It was my voice. Holding hands, we walked to Evergreen.