ZEN DUST

In these rooms, it seems to me
The dust speaks
Dust mostly from books
(The dominant presence of
These rooms, my enclosure)

At times a book will fall
(Perhaps under pressure
Of too much dust)
And open to a sentence by Sappho:
"The sounds of mourning
Do not suit a house
Which serves the Muse;
They are not wanted here"

"Mom," my son Patrick says:
"You feel that gravity will cease to exist
If I move a speck of dust."

Daily, hourly he says that I ask him:
"Where am I? What happened?
What is that dull sound?
The future of the universe being ripped apart?"

I have not always been emotional
About dust, but so much of this particular
Dust is my late husband
John Thomas' dust
I love this
Dust

"Where are my dead leaves, Patrick?"

"They are with the other dead leaves"

There was a caterpillar in the bathroom
Living amidst the dust of a dead rose
It looked like it was going to run out of food so
He moved it to kitchen plants, but
It slid out the window when
The pigeons were being fed and
I think a pigeon may have gotten it

Patrick is here to organize
After John became (shall I say?)
More subtle than dust

Patrick: "MOM!
Why must everything you say
Sound like a poem?!
A moment ago you said
'The wind! The wind!
It seems as if it is going
To scrape Venice off the Pacific plate!!'
Instead of the normal:
'It's a little windy today' "

Patrick is in the closet now
"Mom! You cannot wear that!
It looks like you took it off a dead body
It looks like what Norman Bates' mother
Would wear sitting in a chair!"

He finishes with the black velvet section
Now to the long white dresses
(I now wear little else--
The color of Light and Dust)

"Wait!"
He shouts
"What did I just pass?
Is this for catching fish?"

"That's old lace"

"If you wear this you should
Be sited for public nudity"

"I wear a slip under it...
A white veil over my head...
I dress for the Muse... at times
Become the Muse... the
Bride of... Love Itself..."

Patrick:
"You just keep having
Random thoughts as you
Lie on your back
Spouting them out loud
As I move stuff around"

Random thoughts
That's just the problem
Patrick's organizing has been
Hard on my thought processes
It's been snipping my synapses
So that I've begun referring
To this archeological dig
(So to speak) as "Organizen"

But tonight I am told
By Kyoko
(A Japanese Exchange student
In my UCLA class)
That the Japanese have no
Dominance of right brain or left brain
They use both simultaneously
And now I can't stop singing:
"I think I'm turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so"

"Patrrick," I say
"I want the place to be
Part Zen monastery
Part literary salon"

So he lovingly
(Much like the Dalai Lama with
Tibetan Buddhist Sand Paintings)
Sweeps much of the dust away
Except for the pipes
I ask for the dust to be left on the pipes

Dust which I have let fall gracefully
Over these last two years
And lay upon where
John's lips have touched
Mingling breath with ash
His breath, our breath
19 years
Breathing together
Breathing together
Our breath, our life--
The Intersection of
Love and Poetry

"90% of dust is human debris"
John would say
I do not know if this is correct
But if it is-- much of this dust IS
John Thomas

So I request dust be left
On the floor where
John's bed had been
Dust over which I scatter tears
Then cover it with plastic
Where I create a small Zendo
The very spot where he and I
So often made love in the afternoon light
And I place

A cushion on this very spot
Where he would recline
On his left elbow
Stretched out like a
Reclining Buddha
Fall half- awake / half-asleep
Into his ocean out of time
"Silence, I know, loves me"
He would say

Dust, I know
Has always loved
John Thomas
He, always, so mountain-still
Could create dust

I sit quietly
Breathing slowly
And sometimes
In the morning and afternoon light
I watch new dust

Which the Pacific winds move
So very gracefully
Across these rooms
At times
Slowly, happily
I become
Like dust, myself

As I listen to the loud
TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK
Of our very small
Black plastic clock
(Only 2" by 2" but
Sounds like a Grandfather's Clock)
Sometimes the only sound
In these rooms
So that it seems as if

It is the only sound
Everywhere, anywhere
The First Sound
Before the First Word
And before the first sound the
Silence which
"The sky can't cover
The earth can't support
Empty space can't contain
Sun and moon can't illuminate..."
And

Time
Drops
Off
Each
Tick

And our words
Now into dust
In these rooms words
So softly uttered
Almost unspoken
Dust now speaking
As if one person
Our poems now
So slow, so silent
That only he and I
Can hear