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.