Directed Meditation

Take 10 steps out the door,
in any direction.
Take a deep breath and close your eyes.
Slowly breathe out, open your eyes,
and describe the first thing you see.
My first breath met a wind stirring in the trees,
and my lungs caught it, billowing like a sail,
and I exhaled into night.
Opening my eyes, I saw
before the damp unanimous green
of the trees and grass,
a rosebush in bloom,
each blossom a flame
of cool desire,
and a silent cry of hope.

Sometimes I Wonder Why

Sometimes I wonder why
I don't just sink down into it,
without argument or reproof.
One man's life is as tedious as the next's,
when it comes to the material things.
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential... "
(summers in Rangoon...luge lessons)
Dr. Evil, how right he was!
Repetitive desires, repetitive disappointments.
How consistent it all is,
and how difficult to move beyond it;
or take much of an interest in pushing
this old clay into another shape.
God must be bored out of his mind,
having played this game for the better part of all time.
Or has he put us now on autopilot,
in that eternal 7th day; and now awaits,
greeting the saints,
saints with shining faces,
marching in and out through those flaming doors
every freakin' day of the year.