1. Awakening haiku [3]
Opportunity
lurks in most every crisis
if you take a look.
Coronavirus
can be reimagined as
Karuṇā* virus —
a time to extend
our kindness and caring to
each of us, ourselves.
* compassion in Sanskrit and Pali
2. Zoom Retreat
“…see me comin’ you better run…”
— Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited
3 months into
different species
residential retreat,
now our individual
homes hold the space.
Grace of not having to
wear masks, 137 of us
maintain silence alone
as well as then together
— so expansive [no waiting
lists] thus’ll be retained even
when shelter-in-place is over:
small groups beamed up & back
to larger mothership, this doctor
feels lots like Bones on Star Trek.
3. ENLIGHTENMENT VARIATIONS [4]
i. Awake
This world is awake
except for the dead.
As a Jewbu I used
to think being awake
meant liberated but
now instead awake
feels more like awake
to hunted by dark virus.
i i. Asleep
No longer appears our
sometime sleepy species
is sleepwalking through
daily lives although many
of us stressed have hard
times stay/falling to sleep.
One-year-old grandkid’d
slept well until recently.
iii. Dreams
Assaultive old dreams
of misplaced patients
returning anew for me,
wife’s been dreaming
her babies are dying
as grandchild dreamt
whimpering dream, I hate to Facetime.
iv. Oddly Comforted
Two of six grandsons
seemed pre-adapted to
vagaries of current life
since they were already
introverted, preferring
to stay at home with
parents rather than go
to school or playdates.
4. The Results Are In
Groundhog Day, Punxsutawney Phil/ Phyllis
still could not find his/ her shadow.
Seasons arrive before we know it.
Now’s next year before got used to last.
This getting older is an experience
I have never had before.
Waking up tomorrow morning
probably will feel like yesterday.
So as in Groundhog Day,
let’s decide to make today better.
What makes life worth living?
What matters to me?
How do you want to animate
precious remaining seconds, minutes?
What makes sense, what is possible,
what can all of us devote selves to?
Love and compassion, free expressions
of inherent goodness, do feel wonderful.
But to be honest, during rough times
our intentions are not always noble.
Among myriad habitual perceptions,
my heart becomes clogged by Not Enoughs.
5. Mediatrician* Meditation
Family time ’s something many have wished we could increase –and now it is steady-state.
With all of us suddenly at home together most of the day, faced with new challenges, let’s try to help our grand/ children navigate these uncertain months.
Best way to talk about COVID-19?
How support social/emotional growth/connectivity in an age of societal-distancing?
How to manage kids’ screen time?
Large part bottom-line answers, then what happens seems to me obvious to be primarily up to their grand/parents.
* “Expert ” who “studies” youngsters’ media use and positive or negative implications for health plus development.
Bonus: Silverlining Theory Lovingkindness Opportunity
Saturday morning s
early
like 5 AM
I drive to Ems’
to babysit
Liav
while daughter
plus her husband
sleep-in.
About 9:15
I pop
grandson
in their bed,
head to
close-by
Vipassana
mindfulness
meditation center hall
where rearmost floor
zafus and
folding chairs
left unoccupied
are near front
door
which is labelled,
Go Around
Side
so as NOT to
disturb
sangha sitters.
But inevitably
inattentive others arriving
late
either don’t
notice
or don’t care
trafficking various clunky
noises
shoe-removing, etc.
Which pisses
me off bigtime
particularly
now that I
wear
hearing aids
needed
to understand
subsequent dharma talks.
Bottomline:
golden opportunity
knocks to transform
near-enemy cold rage
into eyes-closed
warm-heartedness.
……………
Gerard Sarnat won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, and has been nominated for a handful of recent Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards. Gerry is widely published in academic-related journals (e.g., Universities of Chicago/ Maine/ San Francisco/Toronto, Stanford, Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Harvard, Pomona, Johns Hopkins, Wesleyan, Penn, Dartmouth, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Baltimore) plus national (e.g., Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, MiPOesias, American Journal Of Poetry, Parhelion, Clementine, pamplemousse, Red Wheelbarrow, Deluge, Poetry Quarterly, poetica, Tipton Journal, Hypnopomp, Free State Review, Poetry Circle, Buddhist Poetry Review, Poets And War, Thank You For Your Service Anthology, Wordpeace, Cliterature, Qommunicate, Indolent Books, Snapdragon, Pandemonium Press, Boston Literary Magazine, Montana Mou thful, Arkansas Review, Texas Review, San Antonio Review, Brooklyn Review, pacificREVIEW, San Francisco Magazine, The Los Angeles Review, Fiction Southeast and The New York Times) and international publications (e.g., Review Berlin, Voices Israel, Foreign Lit, New Ulster, Transnational, Southbank, Wellington Street Review). He’s authored the collections Homeless Chronicles: From Abraham to Burning Man (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014), Melting the Ice King (2016). Gerry is a physician who’s built and staffed clinics for the marginalized as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. Currently, he is devoting energy/ resources to deal with climate change justice. Gerry’s been married since 1969 with three kids plus six grandsons and is looking forward to future granddaughters. Website here.