WE WILL AGAIN STAY IN THE LOVELY — a redemption story, right?"

"The infinite in the finite. 

Finitude as an opening to the infinite.  

Nothing but this is at stake." 

— Jean-Luc Nancy 1

[NOTE - click on photo to enlarge them]

for Julie and Peter

Zen garden, one of several that surround the marvelous home of a friend in the Hamptons, a life long zen practitioner who helped to found and establish zen centers in the USA and world. A remarkable man, as well as, as swell as, the more than zen-ambient (take two of those and call me never, make that SIR Never) surrounding, nudging a briny sound yielding toward Atlantic-suck-muck-kAÀtz away/toward in-sounding, zoneless zen boundaries established by - what zen is - hard work toward satori that is indeed,

a hard work miracle

(deserves to go solo stand (or lay - hey hey
'stand-olé) with its own separate line -

is that egoic?

Who's asking the question?

Horton, of course)

(to repeat) - a hard work miracle that, of course, one does not, should not effort

(drop the shoulds he sez

and drop the dropping -

ARRRRGGGGH!

but I love it, the bepuddlement post
hoc proctor ergo hoc pockets in the
mental toaster, one flavor offered,

DESPAIR into "But seriously, folks"

an' hopeful

he sez

JE L'ESPÉRE.

What you don't see in the photo is the driveway beside the sand, the gravel, the eponymous anonymous cypher stones (presences), the rake patterns, the single pointed raker all a'sweat charade-ing as a butohing crane,

THERE is the big Harley, BLACK, the RED helmet skulled between handle bars - MARS, the god, contemplating universal solar plexus, remembers his samurai sword, one eye toward soft belly and ubiquitous, still radiant cherry blossoms,

petals kick-starting as yet unseen by quantifiable day-impersonal stars counting down (or up cuz no compass really) in plenum plasticity. Galaxy of driveway's Dark Way, it's Big Chopper apparitional re: motion, rumble, teasing balance and conscious breath,

gods bless the Weight of things he sez while searching for his metal comb, not too distant cousin to rakes, antique, a gift, an inheritance from a great grandfather, lite in the hand, hair an ingrained, now scant, suggestion tho looming, past tense,

never, or none, the ever less

and lessoning (hair lets go whisker whispers' vows of silence

he, the zen tender/gardener, complains of 'possums dragging themselves, their tails, their litter loads, over the garden nightly - a penance, yes, a zen penance to be mindful that 'possums ARE the real Masters who enjoy rolling about in sumptuous grit gravel pit, their an'aesthetic fur, their being weighted entities clumsily tumbling , soft bellies up, lolling lil kit-pookum possums exposed to cloud, blue, gray - that hint of expanded space/no space -

they leave traces he sez when there really are none, can't be, but infernal mind's up to its paws and pouches with hunger, sharp teeth, all the yearnings (one is more than enough to bend the curve of the transitive you-niverse)

beneath and between,

the attractive hand-carved, planked, silvery, aged fence giving up its "prevention" mantra to axe yield, to saw, the cleaving wooden "nails" (hammering hard, avoid splintering, cracking) allowing one and all to crawl or fall into sundered split meditation's gravity, weight, light and shadows' butoh-ing gait -

"wait without hope for hope would be hope for/in the wrong thing" he sez quoting you know who,

but nothin's wronger (when/wind) right, right?

Go figure.

It's a redemption story, right?

Forgive. I'm just confusing my fret-aphors, East West twixt foregoing myths of fixity.

Let us go then you and I bending the curve
of the transitive you-niverse

Kant-y - - - - - - - - - - - - Kant-y

>>>>>>>>>>KANT-Y<<<<<<<<<<<<

><><

Bless you both, Julie and Peter, aging between raked pages (made of rice - thin thin), pastels, paints, his bow sez he t'pull the arrow, the TARGET staring

I call it 'POPEYE' he sez, it (target) taunts the archer, all archers

DON'T YOU DARE

He do. Dare.

Arrow flies to the desired mark, reward for life time's conscious intentions, back breaking attention (tho rigid zazen verticals meant to dizzy) constructions, and the mind the mind the mind and

always dewy Kobayashi's -

and yet

and yet

WE WILL AGAIN STAY IN THE LOVELY

*

[NOTE - All photos but the one immediately above are taken at the property and grounds of my friends' home in the Hamptons in New York State]

Footnote 1 - Jean-Luc Nancy, Adoration, The Deconstruction of Christianity Volume Two:

Google preview of it here (click)

Footnote 2 - Kobayahsi Issa - "born Kobayashi Nobuyuki, June 15, 1763, Kashiwabara, Shinano province [present-day Nagano prefecture], Japan; childhood name Kobayashi Yatarō; died January 5, 1828, Kashiwabara), Japanese haiku poet. Issa is revered in Japan and internationally as one of the greatest poets of the haikai tradition, ranked with Matsuo Bashō and Yosa Buson." - from Haikupedia.com (click here to read Kobayashi's bio.)