Zen Painting: A poem by Barb Jordan
Zen Painting
In the vastness, wind;
at the gate,
a doubt. Trout-lilies grow among mosses.
Mountainous terrain, mountainous
uncertainty.
What assumptions
do we carry
precariously, as if balancing water?
And to what end,
but to meet the future half-way:
like some animal
come to rest on a ledge — no plans
or regrets —
the sky flowing through its eyes
like a fountain.
* * *
(A nod to Rilke, to the Eighth Dueno Elegy, where he said of animals:
When they move, they move already in
eternity,
like a fountain.)