Student Reading Week 3 SWP Naropa ko shin Reads!

Week 3 SWP   Reading

Thanks you Bear Mountain

For taking the pain of the fires

The difficultly of the smoke

We are grateful for you, the grown growth, the trees, the flowers, the weeds and all the nsecys and animals

Thank you for be there for our sense of beauty

Help us to be more respectful of U and all of the earth

Thank you Bear  Mountain, deep bows of peace for U and all beings..

I am sure we all have a friend that we talk to all the time. For me it was Rick, retired injured Iron worker, union guy, compassionate friend to the earth and his friends.  We would talk daily, he would listen, and I would listen sometimes that is all that was necessary.

Rick died April 7 after one month of known illness…He asked me to lead his memorial celebration, he asked  my wife to do the native cumching ceremony I can smell the cedar, the tobacco and the sweet grass as the area  we were in and the universe were cleansed by the spirit of the universe…

Rick was from a Canadian native tribe, he and his friend gave me my animal name, Spurgeon, a large cold water creature. Fish….this poem is for my best friend still…

When the Tree falls

It is said, when the tree falls

You face the other way, in honor of its death

and its gift to you

of course before you cut, you are silent for a moment

in a way asking for permission to use this tree for your home or fire…

yes, a native, first peoples understanding of honoring the earth, the universe.

Rick and I and our forest buddies seldom cut a live tree

Unless it was injured by a storm

But now you know what kind of human being my brother Rick was…

We mourn his passing to the next world

I miss him dearly

There is hardly a place I turn here in the woods that he has not touched around m y home.

The earth is not ours

It belongs to all beings and ours to care for and nurture

Rick was an earth man, a justice and peace creature

A Bodhisattva, holding back on his journey, to make sure we all make it. 

Thanks Rick, I have told the trees of your passing, the deer, and the creatures who live here with us.

The sand hills were quiet for a while when I let them know the big truck,

The wonder dog and the forest man would not be here as they knew him anymore.

But they know you are really still here, caring for all!  Miss ya, but happy landings, a good journey in the next world, thanks!

Page 46of my book The Inner passage:

 

A reflection in the black stone, just a picture you say
No I was not in Nam, but I served those who came back in bags and
their loved ones
Yes, my name is not here, but all our names are…
Our names will be on the stone for Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, Sudan,
Palestine, slavery, Native people, Japanese internment, and on and on…
What does it mean to build peace, for all people…think about it, chant
for it, pray to whomever you pray…
I remember a “Nam” funeral; the man who came back in a bag was one
of ten siblings… His sisters and brothers sat by ages with the young parents
at each end, the bookcases of time and love,
The Marines came up so slowly, stood at attention and saluted their
comrade, so slowly and then returned to their seats…
I thought this would never end, then the taps at the grave, it stays with
you for hours and days, no recording then, the real thing…
The question is always, it seems, did he die in vain, what bull shit, the
issue is he died; he is not here to care for and play with his nine siblings
For another war that should not have been fought…when will we
learn…? When will we learn?

PLEASE STAND FOR THE SINGING OF THE LAST HYMN THANKS ALLEN GINSBERG FOR THIS ONE

New Stanzas for Amazing Grace

Composed at the request of Ed Sanders for his production of The New Amazing Grace, performed Nov. 20, 1994, at the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in –the-Bowery.  Written by Allen Ginsberg from DEATH AND FAME, Last Poems, 1993-1997, Harper Perennial, 1999 Allen Ginsberg Trust

I dreamed I dwelled in a homeless place

where I was lost alone.

Folk looked right through me into space,

and passed with eyes of stone

O homeless hand on many a street,

Accept this change from me.

A friendly smile or word is sweet,

as fearless charity

Woe workingman who hears the cry

and cannot spare a dime.

Nor look into a homeless eye

afraid to give the time.

So rich or poor no gold to talk

A smile on your face

The homeless ones where you may walk

Receive amazing grace

I dreamed I dwelled in a homeless place

where I was lost alone.

Folk looked right through me into space,

and passed with eyes of stone