Living Zen Life

A poetic palindrome - kinnikinnik -
Pacific Northwest native plant
small, evergreen, lovely
carpeting the floors of our ancient forests.
Where, you might ask 
did such an exquisite palindrome come from?
Why, from the Algonquin peoples 
whose unceded forested lands
included the Huron National Forest
surrounding the small town 
in Michigan where I grew up. 

Why kinnikinnik?
Because the etymologic name 
is the longest true palindrome
in the English language!
Also because I now have two
tiny palindromes on my veranda.

I am neither plant nor palindrome
nor am I native to this land I call home.
It is home about which I wish to write
going the long way around to it.

I too quickly left our Portland home
following my wife's death.
We were happy there for ten years
near her daughters and granddaughter. 

When Carol went away
I found myself alone
too easy to make decisions without
another to check my worst instincts
to make hasty and often expensive decisions
for which I have paid more than the cost.

I wished to get back to Seattle
where we had lived for many happy years.
Seattle, big city doorway
to forests and mountains of the Olympic peninsula.
I did not look within.
I practiced zazen but did not, in retrospect,
deeply practice the practice.
Had I done so I might
have checked my own worst instincts
without the need for another 
to keep an eye out on me.

The inherent nature of zazen 
is to slow the world down
still its frantic whirl
allow senses to capture 
more than sights and sounds
also the slow movements of the spirit
however we might imagine that spirit to be.

In what land is zazen a race towards anything?
No land I know of,
except the one square inch of land 
the ancients called "mind,"
specifically, my mind.

No. I sat cross-legged
but it was my mind that got all crossed up 
going where I was not 
getting there before I had left.

I write to offer feeble excuse.
I came to be in a place I loved
having lived here many years.
I am no native of this place
not like the lovely kinnikinnik
but I've sunk my Michigan roots here
white birch trees perch and all.
I'll not be in haste again
to leave this place I love so well.