(idling Spiders, fiddling Legs) from The Early Coviditudes Zen-Nish Journal March/April 2020 Poem by Warren Falcon

I dunno. Nothingness, as a certain pleasantly odiferous 'je ne sais quoi' as I get older (am now officially old) , is good to settle on (rather, it, that no thing, settles at least ~nyet-me~; Whys (wise?) neither here nor there cuz (cue now trite redundant Gertrude Stein quote) ...but/and, both conjunctions (including dis- and Dys-) Nothingness (the sudden absurdity of a capital 'N') is liberating depending on what it means in various world quarters - I cozy mozy mostly these days, off and on, in previous decades, to ZEN.

Nothing to lose, this rag of selves.

With what glory remains of hungry pockets

I skip forward singing, La La La, a willful

don, a lord of nothing-much, poems a'pocket.

*

Pre-Face (before birth)

Bodhi is not a tree;
There is no shining mirror.
Since All begins with Nothing
Where can dust collect? - Yeno (Hui-neng,638-713) , traditionally considered the Sixth Patriarch of the Zen sect in China

*

From the Covid journal, two weeks into 'shelter in place' while 'warrentining' in remote Adirondack Mounts north of Lake Placid:

I have been reading zen (and Taoist poets/monks) ... not doing enough sitting but for these walking meditations of sorts, cheating of course, my course of meditation is 'cheating zen' which I believe, and can argue, that there is good scholarly evidence for in history of zen, there being no real rules and orthodoxy but the most import zen 'doxy' is orthoproxy, or, practice, but/and there is much recently read and repeated in text-enough about 'polishing mirrors', that and the bright sun obscuring face, not even MY face but just 'face' or parts of it with one left eye tracing the left hand path I've much in life taken (cuz force and temperament) .

There's teaching everywhere.

Some of it a ponderance and other such as shake clothes and sheets and towels and such before use since winter spiders love to idlely spider there

(idling spiders,

fiddling legs, when

do they sleep?)

And having suffered a severe spider bite some years ago, the craterous skin rot rotting in perfect concentricities, spectrum of colored putrifactions, fascinating to watch slowly devour perfectly good skin, pock full of the stench of beauty and enlightenment or opposite but as they say all doors lead or in this case all pores cede, that's one zen lesson I do not want nor again need.

*

Some weeks later, spring snow and freeze, old knees resisting zen, prayer too. Rekiah's nephew is here renovating old house so the place shakes and vibrates with hammer and saw scrapes of heavy old stuff to be replaced with heavy new stuff so's psoas's sore (itza muscle) me below on ground floor down in here inhering pine knot plank plotch catch all or most dusts the mouse/rat/chipmunk dung the plaster the fiberglass o let this cup pass Lord of Ghosted critters-occupants-seven snake skins, I counted them! entwine water pipes cool wet I guess for snakes need, so evidence speaks, dark hiding nooks with food rodents
close by

old bones and fur

fall into shower stall

'ankledeep in damage'- Nathaniel Mackey

*

Spider. First days here I spoke to every morning
from the john me wondering at its slow slow
movements for 3 days till 4th its legs all curled
tucked tightly beneath its carapace I blow at it
from the cold seat - bunched draws round my
colder ankles- it budges not at all I realize it is
deceased legs uniformly creased a beauty to
see first time ever've felt remorse for a bug a
spider and once cleaned flushed

my pajamas
up I gently

lift Spider with toilet paper so soft
double ply-ed solomnly march spider on
bier so soft softly into still harder winter
snow and darker woods Middle-March flip
flops no socks slow going find a rock up
near the woodshed so place Spider there
with oddest prayer ever in my life but Lord
Buddha helps re: 'all sentient beings'
etcetera etcetera que sera sera OK

so perform brief bone chill rites then slide down
path patch to my ground floor entrance to hot
shower then to Hopkins' poem 'The Windhover'
the more meaningful than ever for its

'dappled-dawn-drawn' things or rather -
substituted - or addendum-ed pray ponder

'threaded-sewn-moaned' things
strangely mourned actual tears born
no doubt of projections upon small
cringes majestically formed objectively
perceived from secret sightless spaces
suspended cocooned in darkness or
once in close woods of August last -

there strung
they

are
and purled

pearled between
limbs beneath
trunks amid ferns
nettle and spore

no rattle click
no ears but
work they
there

remote

faint

stray
among

leaves'

echoes caught
where spider
tufts sough claw
intimate sleights

fragile

are filament

trace strands

taut there

seasonal

a webbed kingdom
made

'a first unfallen church it might have been.' - Nathaniel Mackey

[NOTE - While hermiting I had time to finally do a deep read of Nathaniel Mackey poetry and essays. He was (is) part of 'there's teaching everywhere' and his is music most certainly.]

*

Dreamed 3/28/2020 - what I remember:

Sandy [a friend for 45 years] says to me,

Problem is, Falcon, you're not sincere.

Me: What's that mean? I ask.

Sandy: Take off your mask and give some face to the world. It deserves your praise.

Me (egoically offended - how ZEN of me - sigh) :

OK Mister Rogers of Zen. I do. I do. Swear I do.

Sandy: Aw. You're full of it, I mean, with something other than praise. Look. I have 45 years of letters from you, man, and read everyone of them. Good news is that I haven't had to buy ass-wipe for 45 years with your continual supply of letters coming through.

Me: Praise this, I say (middle finger raised and gestured) .

He laughs. I laugh.

What friends are for.