Robert Beatty | The Blog - ROBERT BEATTY

Strong in the Rain: Kenji Miyazawa

6/28/2021

Strong in the Rain':

Strong in the rain
 Strong in the wind
Strong against the summer heat and snow
He is healthy and robust
 Free from desire He never loses his temper 
Nor the quiet smile on his lips
 He eats four go of unpolished rice Miso and a few vegetables a day 
He does not consider himself In whatever occurs
 His understanding Comes from observation and experience 
And he never loses sight of things
 He lives in a little thatched-roof hut In a field in the shadows of a pine tree grove
 If there is a sick child in the east
 He goes there to nurse the child
 If there’s a tired mother in the west
 He goes to her and carries her sheaves
 If someone is near death in the south
 He goes and says, ‘Don’t be afraid’
 If there are strife and lawsuits in the north
 He demands that the people put an end to their pettiness
 He weeps at the time of drought
 He plods about at a loss during the cold summer 
Everybody calls him Blockhead
No one sings his praises Or takes him to heart...
That is the sort of person I want to be
Kenji Miyazawa

Gate C 22" Ellen BAss

6/27/2021

Ellen Bass Gate 22

Gate C22
At gate C22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after
the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like he'd just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,
like she'd been released at last from ICU, snapped
out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down
from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.

Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.
She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine
her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish
kisses like the ocean in the early morning,
the way it gathers and swells, sucking
each rock under, swallowing it
again and again. We were all watching--
passengers waiting for the delayed flight
to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,
the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling
sunglasses. We couldn't look away. We could
taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.

But the best part was his face. When he drew back
and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost
as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,
as your mother must have looked at you, no matter
what happened after--if she beat you or left you or
you're lonely now--you once lay there, the vernix
not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you
as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.
The whole wing of the airport hushed,
all of us trying to slip into that woman's middle-aged body,
her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,
little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.

Distant Regard: Tony Hoagland

6/27/2021

If I knew I would be dead by this time next year
I believe I would spend the months from now till then
writing thank-you notes to strangers and acquaintances,
telling them, “You really were a great travel agent,”
or “I never got the taste of your kisses out of my mouth.”
or “Watching you walk across the room was part of my destination.”
It would be the equivalent, I think,
of leaving a chocolate wrapped in shiny foil
on the pillow of a guest in a hotel–
“Hotel of earth, where we resided for some years together,”
I start to say, before I realize it is a terrible cliche, and stop,
and then go on, forgiving myself in a mere split second
because now that I’m dying, I just go
forward like water, flowing around obstacles
and second thoughts, not getting snagged, just continuing
with my long list of thank-yous,
which seems to naturally expand to include sunlight and wind,
and the aspen trees which gleam and shimmer in the yard
as if grateful for being soaked last night
by the irrigation system invented by an individual
to whom I am quietly grateful.
Outside it is autumn, the philosophical season,
when cold air sharpens the intellect;
the hills are red and copper in their shaggy majesty.
The clouds blow overhead like governments and years.
It took me a long time to understand the phrase “distant regard,”
but I am grateful for it now,
and I am grateful for my heart,
that turned out to be good, after all;
and grateful for my mind,
to which, in retrospect, I can see
I have never been sufficiently kind.

The Five Precepts

6/6/2021

1.a. I undertake the training of the heart to refrain from taking the life of any living being
1.b. I aspire to become kind and of service to all beings

2.a. I undertake the training of the heart to refrain from taking that which is not freely given
2.b. I aspire to become generous to all beings

3.a. I undertake the training of the heart to refrain from sexual acts which case harm.
3.b. I aspire to nurture love, relationship, and beauty.

4.a. I undertake the the training of the heart to refrain from false and harmful speeich.
4.b. I aspre to use speech to create happiness, harmony and understanding.

5.a. I undertake the the training of the heart to refrain from the use of intoxicants
5.b. I aspire to cultivate mindfulness and wisdom