It is so dry now, my desiccated friend
spits in the bowl of his pipe before applying
flame to its bitter balm, seeking kind of balance.
We tread on rustling mulch to study rustling leaves,
folded in desperate prayer, of what will surely be,
still, next year, an orchard and a kitchen garden
if -- large if -- the well does not run dry.
Everywhere flit wasps, sipping at beetles'
abdomens, having small aphids for dessert.
The birds have capped their singing, panting in
small shade. "Ninety, ninety, ninety-three and ninety,
ninety-seven today, and ninety yet
for all the week ahead, with this drying wind.
Don't you think things are getting out of hand?"
I ask him. He blows a little rueful smoke
but makes no answer. I anyway know from long
acquaintance his position: "there is a law,
and you and I and all these aching things
can never break it." It's that second law
of course, the one that is the silence heard
after all laughter, after songs and tears.
Soon a moon will rise, grand, red,
dressed in soot from a dozen cackling fires.
Web site of part-time Soto Zen hermitary in Eugene, Oregon