nembutsu.info Journal of Shin Buddhism

Poets Corner

Gregg Heathcote

Soaking in my perspicuous blot upon the Name

Now Nature's depth in the living Earth pools
Gently sound this well where inkling blackness bathes
Passion's paned oil watermarking there Oya's lightening sheet
Illumination's paging filmed in oil painted rainbow ill-lustration
Blotted life so staining translucent paper prison walls
That taken at His window Word's absorbing view
Our nadir's turning leaf draws in sheer slickness
Namo Amida Butsu

Here am I bonno blotting in the light
Mugeko's void vision splendid spotting maculate me thus
Shadowing inky immolation engrossed amidst irradiant inner space
Compassion's avowed vespertine reflection in darkling clarity cremated
Its intimate circle our lantern's waxing watermark plain
Wherein transparent togetherness saturates both sense and nonsense
Namo Amida Butsu

Steeped in iridescent contrast my burning body dyes
Bodhi-to-be a telling blank drawn in infinity awash
Screening no-thingness naturally intercepting everything I call me
Neither Buddha nor bombu at heart here hearing
Namo Amida Butsu

Such glorious gloom through the din silently blooms
Open hell-fire flowering with pellucid Bo blossom free
The pit's fruition in life's pointed Name soiling
Namo Amida Butsu

And sincerity's smoothness styles my radical reference real
Namo Amida Butsu

Oneness' signature sealed

(© Copyright Gregg Heathcote, 10 August 1996 )

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