for bodhi, a prayer.

 Noah is always somewhere in his poems, and here he is somewhere, too.  But, he is not yet nowhere and everywhere, except when he is, “as water beneath the many necks lf trees” like “a lamp enshrouded,” as the moon leaves its lightened circle in its gaze.  Noah is in his “loneness,” too careful because “loneness” can only be self-conscious.  Too independent, for all independence is too, except when it’s not.  We are all alone in our independence and so are completely dependent on relationship.  Some embrace it, others run from it but it is always there like a dog nipping at a shadow, like “fear wrapped around” a false teaching or belief.  Until we realize the true teaching, “listening itself,” without what we ascribe to it in our moralistic torpitude.  Awaken, says Buddha, and what may be will be, without doing.

Please forgive my lateness.  An unexpected family emergency, captured my attention in many unexpected ways.  Your words were unknowingly packed with other essentials as I traveled off to what felt like a very distant and foreign land.  I found your words,        " Somewhere you are out walking in that careful loneness" wafting through my mind as I strolled the hospital corridors, alone yet not, reflecting on the pending passing of a complicated relationship, which in many ways happened, yet didn't.  As the days passed and I contemplated what I was experiencing I recalled a line from Shakespeare's Tempest, "...doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange."  Alone, yet in relationships of many forms, there is a richness waiting to be heard if we only sit and listen.  This took me back to your words - the "owl in the woody night" pronouncing both change and transition are in the air, thus bringing light and understanding to what previously felt like overwhelming darkness.  Awake the owl seems to sing for a new day is dawning, filled with the joy of potential yet unrealized. And the bond of "fear" which has wrapped its teaching around so many has been released.