all these towns
have turned their backs
Northeast Regional
/ / /
12 August 2023
outside Manassas VA
Category: Travel
Fitchburg Metta Sutta
Kannon Bodhisattva looks down on my van
as I pass below an outcrop of rock
so I do a u-turn & head back for a visit.
The Vietnamese Buddhist temple sits on a steep
hill overlooking a small post-industrial town
somewhere near the middle of Massachusetts.
A journey of two thousand five hundred years
from India to China to Vietnam to the U.S.
ends in the driveway of a 19th-century house
that’s been put to a new use.
Kannon is the embodiment of compassion;
a being who has reached enlightment
but has chosen instead to stay here
with the rest of us until we can go, too.
That kind of work needs to be done everywhere,
& Fitchburg, Mass. is as good as anywhere else.
I walk around the building taking photos
of the statues & the flowers & the signs
(none of which I can read) & then I stop
& bow before Kannon to show my respect
& because I could use some compassion.
A light rain begins to fall.
/ / /
6 July 2022
Pittsfield MA
the very top
of the Poet’s Seat:
below, just a town
/ / /
19 June 2022
Pittsfield MA
he looked through
this missing windshield
as the wave broke over the bow
/ / /
17 June 2022
Provincetown MA
to see the van as a ship
the road as a sea
the drive as a voyage
///
13 June 2022
Pittsfield MA
post-storm driving
through an arboretum
of glass
/ / /
6 February 2022
Somewhere on I-84
surprise!
the road ends
at a boat
/ / /
6 September 2021
Essex NY
waiting to board
the ferry to VT
Buddha beside the highway
US 17 South
near Remington, Virginia
suddenly he’s there
in a glass box as large as a house
looking out serenely over the highway
spotlights above & below
who put him there?
who pays the electric bill?
who knew there’d be a Buddhist
in a van on this of all nights
needing a little reassurance
on the highway?
/ / /
6 July 2021
Greensboro VT
(recalling something I saw early in my van life)
Leave a Commentmovement
late in the afternoon on an early May day
the dance unfolds across the house
an essay at the kitchen table
grilling meat on the upstairs porch
one makes a slingshot
another searches frantically for
spare headphones because
who can live without music
the dog naps with a belly full of chicken
the cats naps with a belly full of mystery
one of the Marley kids is singing
through the Bluetooth speaker
I’m writing a poem, trying to freeze
a moment already lost to swift time
/ / /
6 May 2021
Greensboro Bend VT