Early Bird Sutra

for Joe and Guin Miller
 

Five o’clock: Sutra calls in the still dark night
Steal out through still wet streets
A soft rain falls —
Halfway up the hill warm light shines behind the door
Soft piano music floats to the soft dark outside.
Sleepy faces of folks in jeans and sweaters
Yogins whose begging bowls
Have turned to typewriters and taxicabs.
Hugs and hellos for the early birds
Flock to hear divine dharma wisdom words
Lead us to the beyond, uncreated
No birth or boundaries, no end.
Everything we need or seek is here
Inside this stillness.
Thoughts rising in the mind
Like a child’s complaints
Are stilled in this radiance
Beyond the beyond.
Outside the sky is lightening
Strike the gong!
And let the heart’s love heat
Melt the mind’s ice palace
And let this wondrous shining
Obliterate all form
And let us be
The light!