[Buddha-l] Front Porch, End of Summer
andy
stroble at hawaii.edu
Mon Sep 7 23:26:31 MDT 2009
On Monday 07 September 2009 16:17:36 JKirkpatrick wrote:
> Into the black hole of Buddha-L,
> some thing.
>
> Joanna
> =========================
>
> Front Porch, End of Summer
>
> The topmost leaves of a sycamore
> looming giantly across the street
> stir gently in the briefest breeze.
> This is the action
> of trees.
> They know no motive -- yet
> they move.
> Sultry air of September, it may rain.
> Will thunder explode
> the silence?
> Will a downpour invade
> the stillness?
> Small birds are seeking food
> at day's decline.
> Birds know they need food.
> The trees do not know
> they need water.
Now this strikes me! I often ask my students to wonder. . . OK, I often
wonder what it is like to be a tree. Knowing that you will stay where you
sprout forever. I think trees do know they need water. Just not a lot they
can do about it. And I think I hear screams when one of those tree re-
location trucks drives by with the root-ball of a tree in it's talons.
> So, while all dharmas are
> interdependent,
> Some, like the trees, the thunder, the rain --
> They do not sow....
> They do not reap.
Neither do they? The echoes lead me in the wrong direction! But I like the
porch, and I miss the Rockies, and September here is just an extension of
August when we look for hurricanes.
Metta,
--
James Andy Stroble, PhD
Lecturer in Philosophy
Department of Arts & Humanities
Leeward Community College
University of Hawaii
Adjunct Faculty
Diplomatic and Military Studies
Hawaii Pacific University
_________________
"The amount of violence at the disposal of any given country may soon not be a
reliable indication of the country's strength or a reliable guarantee against
destruction by a substantially smaller and weaker power." --Hannah Arendt
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