More gratefulness

This is my second to the last week at the halfway house.  Tomorrow is my second to the last round of gratefulness prayers.  They happen every Wednesday night at 6:20 PM.  Today I*ve been feeling almost Buddhist.  Centered and focused and aware.  Today I remember the Buddhist at the halfway house, now in the recovery home.  Like all of the men, I hope he makes it this time.

It all comes around

To gratefulness

In the middle of the week.

Maybe it is the beginning.

It depends on where we start

The count.

The men know it all comes around

To gratefulness.

Maybe it is the end after all.

There was a Buddhist in the group

When I started.

Every Wednesday he would be grateful

For the Buddha.

It often felt like he had to say it

Or Buddha would be forgotten

In this place of recovering men:

Grateful for sobriety

Clarity

New possibility

Food and sunshine,

Even especially

One more day.

His giving thanks for the Buddha

Felt like the ante in poker:

I*ll see my Buddha for your

Jesus Christ.

The Wednesday before my seizure

The Buddhist gave thanks for the Buddha

And Jesus Christ.

I thought

Now there*s gratefulness,

Now he*s ready

To move on.

When I returned,

He had moved past

The halfway house

To the recovery home.

Buddha*s birthday

Every morning I receive a number of things to help me reflect.  Today I was reminded by Garrison Keillor that it is Buddha*s birthday.  I probably wouldn*t  have known otherwise.  I don*t think of Buddha having a birthday, much less what the occasion looks like.  Fixing it to a particular date on the calendar (like we have fixed Jesus to the 25th of December) seems curious to me.  But we all have a birthday.  It*s part of what anchors us to the earth, to time specific.  Of course Lent is tied to the spring cycle of the moon.  I don*t know about specific dates, and the Buddha.  Maybe he is tied to the moon as well, like Lent, and Easter.

Today is Buddha*s birthday.

Here past the middle of Lent

We remember all sorts of things

Even the birthday of the Buddha,

The day when all flowers were said

To bloom

Simultaneously.

Here

Past the middle of Lent,

We remember all sorts of things.

Even Buddha.

Here it is the seventh of April

On the calendar;

There are so many things

To remember

And detail.

The lawn people took the rotted edges

Off the garden bed.

Last night I saw it in the evening light.

Without edges,

It looked like a grave,

A three by seven mound of dirt.

It seems they even cleared

The rhubarb,

But maybe it is still there

Under the dirt.

Here it is past the middle of Lent,

The birthday of Buddha.

The fortune cookie last night said:

Everything will now come your way.

It is a scary thought.

Still

I wait for all the flowers to bloom

At once.